Greatness ON HIATUS
by Foy the Snooze Button
Summary: Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze was not happy. For the last 4 years of his 7 year old life he has been unknowingly been neglected by his parents. He still loved them, but on the day of his birthday, after his fathers announcement, the love he had for his parents melted into something one should not feel: hate. Would there be forgiveness or would there be blood. Grey!Naruto Puppeteer!Naruto
1. Chapter 1

**Yo guys! I'm B.j and this piece of literature below is my first fan fiction, so** ** _please be gentle_** **. Wow, I am not even sure if that was an innuendo but whatever. Pairing is NaruHina, no discussion. And this would also be a neglect fic although it may or may not be rectified. To be honest, I don't know why my first fan fiction was a neglect fic; I'll have to talk to my psychiatrist about it later.**

 **This fic is slightly dark, more grey-like but Naruto would not be evil.**

 **So, enjoy!**

CHAPTER 1

 _'It's not fair'_ 7 year old Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze thought. Sitting next to his bedroom window, he watched forlornly as his 'family'; the man had bright, blue eyes and spiky, blond hair. He wore a standard Konoha uniform with two bands on both of his sleeves, a green flak jacket, blue forehead protector, and blue sandals. Over his flak jacket he wore a short-sleeved long white haori closed in the front by a thin, orange rope. The haori was decorated by red flame-like motifs on the edges, with the kanji for "Fourth Hokage" (四代目火影, _Yondaime Hokage_ ) written vertically down the back. This man was his father, the Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze, the woman had a slender, but feminine build, fair skin, violet eyes, and the common Uzumaki red hair. It reached her waist with shoulder-length strands that framed both sides of her face and a black clip that parts her hair to the left. She wore a high-collared, sleeveless blouse under a long, loose-fitting light green dress with a wristband on her left wrist and standard shinobi sandals. She was his mother, Kushina Uzumaki-Namikaze, former jinchuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, and a miniture version of his mother, except she wore a deep blue dress, she was his twin sister Mito Uzumaki-Namikaze, jinchuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, along with his god parents Tsunade and Jiraiya played around his family's training ground under the guise of training.

He did not know what he did wrong. He woke up early, cleaned up the kitchen and went for a walk to the Hokage Monument where he could watch the sunrise, he greeted his parents every day, he helped Mito in learning how to read, and he even waved to the villagers who somehow still knew him.

Then he looked into the mirror to see if he had any sort of deformity, unsurprisingly he had none. He was as tall as any other healthy 5 year old, green pupils, two arms and two legs. But if there was anything strange about his body it would be his hair and his skin colour, it was similar to his father's blonde but had streaks of grey in it and his skin was very pale, luckily not too many of his veins were showing. One afternoon in the village's park, he asked a dark purple haired, lavender eyed 5 year old girl if he was ugly, she fainted. He would have to read into that later.

He even tried to see whether he was too dumb, he wasn't; because unknown to his parents had already started reading from his 'family's' library. He had already learnt the finer mechanics of fuinjutsu, going further in it than any Uzumaki his age should. Something even Mito hadn't done.

But he had a hunch on what his problem was, 'stupid chakra' he muttered bitterly. He sister unlocked her chakra when they were four years old, so predictably his god father Jiraiya proclaimed that she was a prodigy. Then started spouting something about training her early and letting her sign the toad contract. Yeah toads were cool, but he didn't want them. He had a hard time even unlocking his chakra, anytime he tried to use it he would feel _weird,_ like it wanted to come out but it just wasn't strong enough. He asked one of his few friends parents what that meant, Shibi Aburame answered: "your chakra is too weak to come out" he tried not to take offense at that, "you will activate it Naruto, it would just be harder", needless to say he took Shibi's words to heart. He was his role model after all.

He finally coaxed his chakra out after two long weeks of 6 hour meditations; it was a sickly looking green that felt like tiny, _tiny_ feet were crawling all over his skin. Like spiders. Now that he thought about it, his chakra, apparently, was poisonous. After activating it, he found a dead bear in the forest he was training in. weird.

 _'Screw them then'_ , the poor child muttered, _' I'll show you I can get strong without your help'._ It was Greatness in the making.

 **The Next Day**

We now find our young hero on his morning walks to the Hokage Monument, deep in thought.

 _'sarutobi-oji-sama said if I want to be great, I have to have a goal and a role model'_ , then he giggled slightly _'or role models'_ , it was an unknown secret that young Naruto looked up to anyone who acknowledged him. Like Shibi Aburame, Uchiha Itachi, Yugao Uzuki, the Kazekage, to name a few.

You may ask yourself how he knows the Kazekage, it was because Suna and Konoha had strong ties with each other and that his family would visit Suna as many times as possible and the Kazekage's family would do likewise.

Back to the topic at hand, hands in his shorts pockets, Naruto walked quietly to his spot on the Sandaime Hokage's head. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a book; trudging over to it he picked it up and dusted the dirty cover, it read: **The Bing Book**. The red-head cocked his head to the side slightly and tried to remember where he had heard of the name from. Naruto opened the books and began reading it in awe and fascination; it was a sort of bounty book filled with both missing nin and normal ninja. Flipping the page quickly and trying but failing to contain his drooling, he even saw his parents. Then stopped dead at a missing nin page, not because of his name but because of his bounty.

 _'S-class Nuke-nin'_ , he muttered, _'Sasori of the Red Sands'_

 **S-Class**

 **SASORI OF THE RED SANDS**

 **AGE: UNKNOWN**

 **AFFILIATION: SUNA NUKE-NIN**

 **DESCRIPTION: BROWN EYES, RED HAIR.  
**

 **ABILITIY(S): PUPETEER**

 **NOTE: SASORI OF THE RED SANDS IS ACREDITED FOR HIS MASTERY OF HIS ART TO THE EXTENT HE COULD SOMEHOW CONTROL MORE THAN TEN OF HIS PUPETS AT A SING TIME. HE USED HIS ABILITY TO TAKE OVER A COUNTRY. SASORI IS ALSO KNOWN FOR HIS USE OF HUMAN PUPPETS. IT IS ALSO RUMOURED THAT HE HAD TURNED HIS BODY INTO A PUPPET. IF ENCOUNTERED:** **DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ENGAGE.**

"Wow", the quiet boy muttered, "this guy is awesome; he even has a higher bounty than Tou-sama and kaa-sama".

He proceeded with his walk, eyes still glued to the Bingo Book, committing his new role models page to his memory.

"Puppeteer", at this he paused, the title intrigued him just as much as the study of fuinjutsu. Forgetting that his daily tradition of watching the sunrise on the Hokage monument, he raced to the village's library. The village's library had become his second home when he could not reach the books at the top of the shelf at his family's library. It opened after sunrise and closed just before sunset, meaning he spent 9 hours of his life in the library trying to find an aspect of the ninja life that would interest him so that he could expand on it. He arrived 30 minutes early, so he sat at the steps and re-read Sasori's page, the words 'human puppets' popped out to him for not the first time. He could only guess what that meant, but strangely that did not disgust him in the least, just like when, after he unlocked his chakra, he experimented on what his chakra could do to other animals barring the bear he found. What he discovered amazed him, when he caught a rabbit he pushed a little bit of his chakra into it and found that the animal's skin pigmentation changed from light brown to a sickly green also when Naruto dropped the rabbit in fright and made to run the poor creature followed almost as fast as any other juiced up rabbit. Further intrigued, he pumped as much chakra as he could spare into the rabbit and the animal started to deteriorate and die. He also tested this on insects and found that particularly arachnids were drawn to it. At the time he was 5 years old so he summed it up to him having abnormal chakra. Yeah, go figure.

The pale boys thoughts were cut-off by the sound of jingling bells, "Good morning Naruto-kun" Sami Yamanaka greeted as he unlocked the librarys door, he was a 68 year old war veteran from the second shinobi war, he retired from active duty as a jounin to tend to the library which at the time was seriously lacking. "you're here earlier than usual".

"Hai Sami-san, I just wanted to get an early start", Naruto said as he scratched the back of his head.

Giving the 7 year old thumbs up, Sami whispered, "good boy, but next time if you want to get an early start you can swing by my place and help me open up"

"Really?" Naruto said with stars in his eyes.

"Really, now", helping the boy to his feet, Sami opened the library doors and ushered Naruto inside, "can you help me dust down the books today?"

"Definitely, old man!" Naruto grinned, running to the store room to carry the dusters. He started dusting the shelves from top to bottom occasionally climbing the librarys ladder to reach the top. "Ne, Sami-san?" at the old man's hum he continued "what do you know about puppeteering?"

"puppeteering you say," he paused to scratch his chin, "well puppeteering is a shinobi art form commonly indigenous to Suna, the make use of puppets, most likely made of wood, in combat" Sami recited as if reading from a text book, he continued, "from what I observed in the last shinobi war, puppeteers make use of chakra strings to bring their creations to 'life'".

As Sami was speaking, Naruto's mind began racing a mile a minute, _'puppets made out of wood, so human puppets are not really known or maybe even liked'._ When he finished dusting his side of the library, he ran to Sami and asked where he could find _anything_ on puppets. Sami's eyes twinkled knowingly and he pointed to the 'S' section of the library and told him to knock himself out.

 **30 minutes later**

Naruto soon discovered that konoha's knowledge on puppeteering was seriously lacking. _'I mean how could information on something so interesting be so little'_ the boy pouted, then he looked at Sasori's page in the bingo book and clenched his fists _'I'll have to fix that, then I'll become the world's best puppet master, I'll show you Namikaze family, that I am worth your time'._

Racing to the door and waving to the elderly librarian who still had that knowing look in his eyes, Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze ran home.

On reaching his home, Naruto made a bee line to his father's library, luckily for him, Minato had already left for work as the Hokage; he searched for anything on puppets, puppet masters and chakra strings. He actually found more on chakra strings than in the library, but it was still not enough. He had to expel threads of chakra from the tenketsu of his fingers; it did not say how he would be able to do this. So naturally, for him that is, he deduced that to be able to expel chakra from one part of the body he would have to have very good chakra control. The pale boy found an entire scroll on basic and advanced chakra control exercises, clutching the book to his chest he ran out of the library straight to his room.

That month, Naruto found out that he had a lot of very dense chakra, so much that he had to start with tree/wall/surface walking before he could be able to do leaf balancing or even leaf spinning. He would only come out of his room occasionally to eat, which was once or twice a day and collect two hand full of leaves for his chakra control, the only people who noticed this were his friend (Shino Aburame), some of his parent's friends and his sister, Mito.

Mito Uzumaki-Namikaze loved her brother, borderline crushed on even, although she tried to not make it painfully obvious, the fact that her face would light up red would show that she was failing. He was very cool. She was slightly shorter than him, with her mother's red hair. She was also the polar opposite of her introverted brother, that is; she was friends with everyone, she pranked, she lacked patience and she had more stamina. But she still loved him. When there was a thunder storm, she would creep into his room and slide into his bed, sobbing into his chest as he whispered comfort to her. If she had any problem reading, she would meet her brother first before taking it to her father. Mito loved her brother. So when her brother did not come out of his room as regularly as per norm she became afraid, but her fears were assuaged when she saw him reading a huge scroll, he asked him what he was reading, he told her, "chakra control". Sighing wistfully to herself, the blonde nudged her way into his room and lying on Naruto's bed, Mito watched as her brother walk around his ceiling shirtless covered in spinning leaves and reading a text on wood work and construction.

"Ne, nee-chan! Do you think I can do that?" Mito

"If you are patient, yes you can Mito-chan" he grunted

Pouting, Mito ranted "I've tried Naruto-nee-chan! But Tou-chan said I have too much chakra, he said because I have so much chakra, I'll have to do so many chakra control exercises, I mean…"

"Mito-chan, trust me, you can do it" Naruto paused and smiled at her, "I believe in you"

Mito grinned up at him, face as red as her hair "thanks nee-chan"

"No prob" and he continued running around his ceiling

"Ne nee-chan, what are you think I should wear for the Kyuubi festival this evening" the red head mumbled as she twiddled her fingers, hoping he didn't hear. "I-I mean, are you going" here Naruto chuckled slightly, "of course you're going, it's our birthday"

"Don't worry Mito-chan; I'll see if I can go"

The rest of the day Mito silently watched her brother walking around the ceiling reading his book occasionally doing push up's, squats and some stretches, with stars in her eyes. Then she both heard their parents from downstairs yelling for her to get ready for the festival. The blonde sighed to herself at having her time cut short, she got up and trudged to her room while muttering "see you later nee-chan".

As the door closed, Naruto got down, leaves still spinning and stretched. He mused to himself all the plans he had for the puppets he would create. When he finished stretching he was sure his parents had forgotten him again and went to the festival. The blonde sat down at his desk and marked off all the chakra control exercises he has done, satisfied he has finished the scroll on chakra control he concentrated chakra to his index finger and watched fascinated as a thin thread of left his finger and floated to his pillow across the room and he tugged, he had to duck so as to avoid being decapitated.

 _'Interesting,'_ he thought, _'now to start sketching my puppet designs'_ at this he let loose an 'evil' laugh that sounded more like a giggle.

The festival was in full swing. The games were fun, the food was delicious and the people were happy, well not everyone was happy. Barring all those that lost a loved one on that day 7 years ago, two people were definitely not happy. They were Mito Uzumaki-Namikaze and Hinata Hyuuga, both for similar, Mito because she wanted her brother to be there at the festival and Hinata because she wanted to see her new crush (even if she had only seen him once) again.

But alas, oblivious to his daughter's thoughts, Minato Namikaze's mind was racing on how to celebrate part two of his daughter's birthday seemingly forgetting that he had a son as well.

After the annual Kyuubi festival, the Uzumaki-Namikaze family sans Naruto were now sitting round their main rooms table awaiting the guests for Mito's (and Naruto's) birthday party, and as the guest were trickling in Minato stood up and welcomed them in. it was at this time that Naruto, wearing a dark green shirt, black shorts and black sandals, walked in. he noticed to his disappointment that most of the party's guests and their children were surrounding his 'family', so he found a secluded corner and sat down, bringing out his sketch book and continuing his work. He already had 3 ideas.

"Yo Naruto!" a voice, Mito, yelled "come over here, lets blow out our cake"

Both of their parents looked at themselves and cursed, they had totally forgotten to get Naruto presents, then as if sharing a collective thought promised to make it up to him, that is if he could ever forgive them of what they were about to do…

The blonde boy nodded to Mito and stood up silently, he spotted shino and his parents in the crowd and nodded to them, but to his disappointment he did not see Itachi. He walked over to Mito and looked at his parents and bowed "Tou-sama, Kaa-sama", everyone was taken aback by his politeness because normal 7 year olds were brasher. After blowing out their cake, Minato announced that it was now present time.

"Oh oh I'll go first" Jiraiya shouted, "Mito-chan, with the blessings of the toad elders, I give you the toad contract to sign!" stunned silence, then thunderous claps from the crowd. The toad sage then brought out a huge scroll and presented it to Mito, shoving poor Naruto aside "just sign under your father's name with your blood" and in the Namikaze family's excitement they forgot the presence of their other child. Naruto's only sign of distaste was his slightly clenched hand. He walked back to his corner, sat down and continued his sketching, getting lost in his imagination and the mechanics of his puppet sketches. Then two people sat beside him almost silently, well three people but the third person chose to stand, poking her index fingers together.

"Happy birthday, Naruto" two of the people said, one male the other female.

"Thanks guys" the budding puppet master smiled at them, "how's the party"

Shino Aburame nodded "the party is good"

"Yeah, the party is ok, but how you are Naruto" Hanabi Hyuuga said, looking at what Naruto was drawing "and what is that!"

"I'm… fine and this" he said "is a work in progress, but I promise to show you guys when I'm done."

Shino nodded again and Hanabi pouted "fine", she the grinned and nudged her foot at the third girl, still standing and fidgeting "c'mon Hinata, say 'hi'"

Here the poor girls blush deepened and she waved at Naruto, who looked up at her and tried to remember where he had seen her from, "h-hello Naruto-s-san, my n-name is H-Hinata Hyuuga" she stammered.

"Nice to meet you" he smiled slightly, "have I seen you before?"

"Of course you have Naruto; she was the girl that passed out after you asked her if you were ugly!" Hanabi laughed, "Which you aren't, mind I remind you. She just said she wanted to meet you."

"Well met Hinata-san" Naruto said as he shook her sweaty hand "do you guys need anything to drink?"

"Nah, I'm good" Hanabi said as she patted her belly, "what of you shino?"

"I am also good" he then looked at Hinata who shook her head. "My Tou-san aid I should give you this" he brought out a new set of ten kunai and shuriken. Naruto took the gifts and smiled at shino nodding his thanks.

"Oh yeah, my Tou-san also sent us to give you this" Hanabi brought out a wrapped box. Naruto took the box and unwrapped it, he gasped quietly when he saw what the Hyuuga clan head bought for him. It was two pairs of Black Hand gloves, two pairs of black sunglasses and three black half masks (masks that cover the lower half of the face, which is nose and mouth). He smiled at the present, wondering how the man read his mind.

"Thanks guys," he then pulled both children into a hug, "you too Hinata" said girl blushed even deeper (if that's even possible) and nodded her head.

"Excuse me everybody, I have an announcement to make" Minato's voice yelled over the crowd, ordering for silence "I'd like to announce that I have now officially named Mito-chan as the Uzumaki-Namikaze clan heir". The silence was deafening, most of the guests sent Naruto-who was at the back of the room-sympathetic looks, knowing fully well that he was the older twin.

Naruto's world screeched to a stop. _'They named her clan heir…'_ it is a well-known fact that if ones birth right is given to someone else it meant that the guardians-in this case, his parents-thought that he was incapable of the role. _'They think I'm too weak! They think I'm useless!'_ he mentally fumed. He stood up and looked at his parents and took a deep breathe, bowed to them and walked out the front door. Back at the party, most of the guest sighed in relief that they did not have to witness a childish tantrum, while Naruto's parents felt sick to their stomachs, _'how could we do this to him'_ they sighed. They renewed their promise to try and make it up to him. Meanwhile, Mito's heart broke.

Naruto walked calmly to training ground 44 to vent out his anger.

When he reached, his anger was almost legendary to behold. He manifested chakra strings from most of his tenketsu, whether it was his hands, back, legs, neck, anywhere the strings could come out without it tearing his clothes to shreds and he decimated any tree and animal that got in his way. He let loose a yell and tore into a bear, mutilating the poor thing, disregarding the animal's roars of mercy. It was midnight when he finally cooled down and could make even the slightest bit of coherent thought, suspiciously not even the slightest bit tired he sat down and, for the first time in four years when his parents first forgot his birthday, cried. He cried until his voice was hoarse and scratchy. Another hour later pale boy stopped crying and looked up at the moon, clenching his fist he produced a thin string of chakra from his index finger, it glowed an eerie green and snaked around the trunk of a tree where he pumped more chakra into it and watched as the tree deteriorated slowly until it was on the verge of falling, with a flick of his wrist the tree fell forward and crashed in the now freshly made clearing.

 _'I'll show them' he thought darkly 'I'll show them I'm not useless'_

And with that last thought, he took off his shirt and produced chakra strings from all his available tenketsu (same as before, but now includes his back, chest and sides) and began chipping away at the fallen tree, constructing his first puppet. If one were to watch him cut into the tree one would say he looked eerily like a spider wrapping its prey with its web.

A few feet away, Shibi Aburame watched his unofficial student as carved into the tree trunk and nodded approvingly, already knowing what he was doing, before he left in a shunshin. _'Good luck, Naruto'._

 **Authors Note**

 **Well, first chapter done! Let it be known now that this is not a complete bashing, so all of you can relax. I really do not know where I got this idea from. Yes and the pairing will be a NaruHina, although there would not be any development about them anytime soon. Therefore, no matter how much this fic seems more incest inclined, it is not. Can't write it but I can read it. *Grins* I had a crush on my aunt when I was 7 years old, I'm not sure if it's natural or whatever. It's also on my list of what I'll ask my psychiatrist.**

 ***cough cough* Further, since Naruto now has multiple 'limbs' (chakra strings) and he is used to doing multiple things at a time like his chakra control exercises while reading, he would be able to complete a puppet faster than normal. He does not have chakra chains. Hope Naruto isn't OP.**

 **Naruto does not hate Mito, in fact he loves here just a little bit less than she loves him, which is a lot. Most of his pent up anger would be towards his parents, he won't be a brat out rightly to them, he would most likely ignore them or act like nothing ever happened. Either one is fine.**

 **That's it then. You guys can't see it but I'm hyperventilating now. Please review.**

 **B.j.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Next chapter is up, thanks for reviewing guys! Much appreciated.**

 **I forgot to write this on my last chapter but: I DO NOT OWN NARUTO.**

CHAPTER 2

 **Last time on: Greatness (*laughs*)**

 _Naruto walked calmly to training ground 44 to vent out his anger._

 _When he reached, his anger was almost legendary to behold. He manifested chakra strings from most of his tenketsu, whether it was his hands, back, legs, neck, anywhere the strings could come out without it tearing his clothes to shreds and he decimated any tree and animal that got in his way. He let loose a yell and tore into a bear, mutilating the poor thing, disregarding the animal's roars of mercy. It was midnight when he finally cooled down and could make even the slightest bit of coherent thought, suspiciously not even the slightest bit tired he sat down and, for the first time in four years when his parents first forgot his birthday, cried. He cried until his voice was hoarse and scratchy. Another hour later pale boy stopped crying and looked up at the moon, clenching his fist he produced a thin string of chakra from his index finger, it glowed an eerie green and snaked around the trunk of a tree where he pumped more chakra into it and watched as the tree deteriorated slowly until it was on the verge of falling, with a flick of his wrist the tree fell forward and crashed in the now freshly made clearing._

 _'I'll show them' he thought darkly 'I'll show them I'm not useless'_

 _And with that last thought, he took off his shirt and produced chakra strings from all his available tenketsu (same as before, but now includes his back, chest and sides) and began chipping away at the fallen tree, constructing his first puppet. If one were to watch him cut into the tree one would say he looked eerily like a spider wrapping its prey with its web._

 _A few feet away, Shibi Aburame watched his unofficial student as carved into the tree trunk and nodded approvingly, already knowing what he was doing, before he left in a shunshin. 'Good luck, Naruto'._

 **Now..**

The next day, the residents of konohagakure no sato were in for a surprise when, at midday, the hokage's son walked down his usual path towards his home with wooden parts of a _something_ levitating above his head with faint green strings connected to them. This not withstanding the fact that ninja in general could walk on walls, water and even breath fire; it was the fact that it was a 8 year old child that looked as if he had just fought off a tiger in a blizzard carried these things above his head. But even still, when they finally adjusted to the sight, most of the villagers sent him smiles and waves which he only responded to with stoic nods.

But despite his stoic exterior, Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze's mind was a whirlwind of idea's, traps and even the occasional plot. _'The jaw should be able to unhinge and fire poison senbon, these poison senbon should be categorised inside Kumo-paralytic, fatal and uncomfortable. The joints can be easily constructed in Higuarashi-san's weapons store. Yes, I know exactly what to do'._

On reaching home, he briefly pondered whether he should follow the front door or his bedroom window; he chose the latter while briefly noting that when he became a ninja he would buy a more spacious house or apartment.

Since it was a well known fact that the Hokage and his wife, who was the princess of the now semi-extinct Uzushioagakure no Sato, were seal masters far even surpassing Jiraiya of the Sannin, so it came as no surprise when he found it impossible to wall walk up the house to his room, so the boy did the next best thing; he spared two strings and used it to open his rooms window, he then very delicately-despite it being made out of sturdy wood-place his puppet parts in his room. Then the blonde boy used the strings as a sort of limb to hoist himself up to his room. This all happened in the span of 3 minutes.

' _So my guess was correct, I can use my chakra string as prehensile limbs'_ Naruto mused, as he passed through his window, his legs were immediately latched onto by a red faced and red eyed Mito. Sighing to himself, he patted her head and made to walk into his bathroom when he still could not walk, unsurprising since Mito was still latched on his legs.

"O-o-nii-san, I-I'm sorry! Y-you can have the-the title I-if you want, just please I-I'm sorry!" she blubbered, her word slightly slurring most likely from lack of sleep.

Naruto had no idea what to do; he never really studied on how to stop a girl from crying. He patted her head awkwardly and told her: "Mito, I'm not angry at you" then his face softened, "please stop crying."

Then as if a switch had been pulled, she indeed stopped crying but this time she climbed onto his back, a few minutes of rigid standing and her breathing evened out. He pondered using his strings to place her on his bed to sleep, but discarded it not wanting to risk poisoning his own sister. After placing the red faced girl in bed and giving her head another awkward pat, he proceeded into his bathroom and showered, he had a long day ahead of him.

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

We now find our budding puppet master in the market district, green shorts filled with scrolls that were in turn filled with money he had saved since he was 5 years old, apparently being the son of a Kage had its perks, go figure. In his hands he held a list of all his requirements he would need for his puppets; he walked into Higuarashi's Ninja Weapon Store, where the bell over head chimed;

"Welcome to Higuarashi's Ninja Weapon Store, Namikaze-sama, how may I be of assistance" Shurupuu Higuarashi, a burly, black haired, black eyed man of 50 years old bellowed from behind his stores counter.

"No need for formalities, Higuarashi-san, I'm just here to buy some things" Naruto said as he passed over his list to the muscular man "and how much is it to rent out your workshop and forge for an indefinite period of time"

"5000 ryo per week" the man hummed as his eyes scanned over the list "pardon me for asking Naruto-kun, but are you preparing for a war?"

"In a sense, yes I am" the pale boy smirked, when the man paled he waved his hand dismissively "it's not important, just do you have all on that list?"

"Yes, I do have everything" at this Naruto sighed in relief, "When do you want me to deliver them to your house?"

"Actually, I plan on using them in your work shop if you don't mind, so you can just carry them over there"

"Luckily for me, most of them are already there, that is the weapons, and the clothes are up here, I'll carry them down when you're ready to use it. When do you want to pay for all this, I mean if you pay me for these things and you also pay me for renting out my workshop and forge I can actually retire 20 years earlier, which I wouldn't mind you" he then wrote down the sum of Naruto's purchase, but was surprised to see that he only nodded. Not even responding, Naruto brought out a scroll and unrolled it over he counter, the man watched him open mouthed as Naruto unsealed so much money it actually made the counter _creak_ under its weight. They heard an almost inaudible thump behind the shelf where a few zanbatou's were hung, they could only assume that the burly mans daughter had seen the money and passed out.

"Will this sum be sufficient" Higuarashi gave a dumb nod, trying to process how that much money could be on a child's body, "is your workshop ready now?" another nod. "Then, I would like to make use of it now please"

"Don't mind if I ask, but how long would you be there?" the man said, trying to get his mouth to work correctly.

"A long, _long_ time, Higuarashi-san" the boy chuckled. "Down payment for the next year is in there, you can count it at your leisure. Maybe in the future when I'm older we can enter into another agreement that would be beneficial to both of us"

"I-I…uh…w-well then, follow me" the black smith stammered, going to the door and closing his shop for the day, before he turned around and staggered into a corridor-still not believing how rich he was now-that led to two separate place, upstairs and downstairs, they went downstairs and Naruto found himself in a humble workshop/forge. All the necessaries were there. "If you don't mind me asking" Higuarashi stammered, "do you even _know_ how to use a forge?"

"Don't worry about me, Higuarashi-san, I'll be fine" the boy said as he rubbed his hands together, "please bring in the clothes, I'll be here for a while."

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

Apparently, what Naruto meant by 'a while' was 5 months.

He only left the workshop was to visit his sister in the kage's mansion who had taken to training like a girl possessed, saying she wanted "to make her onii-san proud", go to his friends clan compounds so that they would not notice his absence in the mansion, visited Shibi Aburame who suspiciously gave him a scroll on the various spiders the Abuarme clan had catalogued and their poisons if they had and even though he could not see his eyes behind his glasses, he could just feel the knowing air his sensei had.

He also made weekly trips into training ground 44-which he noticed that the trees were more sturdier than the trees in Konoha's other forests-so he could cut down trees and started carving out body parts for his puppets among other things. He had also taken to running laps around Konoha before sunrise where he would find a green spandex wearing… person also jogging (more like sprinting) around Konoha, that would yell something about "the springtime of youth!" and "youthful jogging of a youthful youth!" anytime he saw him. He shuddered at the memory.

Naruto had also taken it upon himself to find a fighting style that would complement his puppetry; Sami Yamanaka gave him a scroll from the less frequented section of the Konoha library. It was called **The Dizzy Spell Stinging Fists** (original name); despite the long and arduous name it was the perfect fighting style. It focused on movements that were unpredictable, fast and disorientating but not too strong strikes; where a user should be able to move his arms and feet so fast it would be a blur, which in turn would slightly hypnotize the victim and give him time to strike him in any of his pressure points, stick a paralysis senbon he was sure to place on his person or jump back so he could use a puppet. The style needed the user to be even the slightest bit proficient in using a senbon. **The Dizzy Spell Stinging Fists** was eerily similar to using a genjutsu but it was not, still the only way to neutralize the fighting style for a novice user was if the person was to have a doujutsu like the sharingan or the byakugan, he'd have to plan on what to do if that were ever the case. He has been training in the style for the past 3 months for 5 hours a day in his favourite training ground, so he could say he was proficient in it but it would take a few more years before he would become a master in the style.

Naruto was now the proud owner of three puppets.

The first was a puppet named **Kumo** ; it was modelled, unsurprisingly, after a spider with a man's upper body. The puppets spider half was painted black with the occasional brown and dark green streaks. The human half was Caucasian with green eyes, he wore a sleeveless black shirt with a dark green flak jacket over it. The puppets abdomen was filled with ninja wire and shuriken, both laced with paralytic and poisons respectively. The puppets arms were riddled with seals that stored poisoned senbon, shuriken, kunai, explosive tags, flash bangs and smoke bombs, the mouth was segmented and fanged slightly, he could retract the fangs and make it as long as a regular kunai poisoned, of course, with an anti-coagulant-like poison that would prevent the wound from closing. He would have to bite the neck for it to ensure 95% death rate of its victims. Kumo had seals on his flak jacket that stored some lightening chakra so that if anyone were to be able to hold onto him, he would be able to electrocute the poor idiot. Also, the puppet had a cavity in it where Naruto could climb in and control directly, but if one were to see the puppet for the first time it would be hard to believe because the human half had a regular build. The puppets whole body was also riddled with durability seals so it could even fight underwater (he hadn't tested it yet). It carried a katana sealed into its wrist for emergencies. Naruto had already decided that Kenchi would be his most used puppet.

The second puppet was mysteriously named **Black Hole (Burakkuhoru)** or **Ko**. Naruto made the puppet looked like a 5 year old child so that its opponents would underestimate it. He fashioned it to look as cute and _adorable_ as any other regular child should be, it had green eyes and a faint dusting of blush on its cheeks, he made the puppet I such a way that it would fidget cutely when he summoned it but when its opponent began to relax, it would look into its victims eyes, hypnotizing him-Naruto was very good with seals-then it would unhinge its mouth and a seal in its mouth would activate. It would be from this seal that the puppets name had been derived. The seal in its mouth was a modified storage seal that removed the handicap of storage limit and whether the thing being stored was living or not, it would shoot out ninja wires and quickly drag the still gushing victim into its mouth where he would remain in suspended animation for an indefinite period of time. The puppet could spit the opponent out, still in a daze, at command. Ko wore a purple kimono with black flowers over the waist and chest areas, it had on black sandals, it also had pitch black hair and lightly tanned skin. Ko was a puppet that was physically incapable of running past a civilian pace because she was as slimmed as any other healthy child should be without any training. Ko was a puppet more accustomed for capture and interrogation.

The last puppet was Naruto proudest work of art. It was named **Mummy (Mira)** or **Wraps**. Naruto first of all carved out a human skeleton from a tree and inscribed it with his special durability seals. He then painted it so it could easily pass off as a human skeleton and then began wrapping it in bandages from top to bottom so heavily that if one were to see it, he would think that there was skin underneath it. Its eyes were green orbs that glowed and its mouth was forever etched in a toothy grin. It carried a solid obsidian scythe he had sent Higuarashi to order from **Demon Country** for a hefty sum of money, but it was well worth it because if any other person besides Naruto held it, he would immediately be struck comatose. Naruto was inspired in making this puppet by myths of a ghost with similar features, so, if he was forced to introduce wraps he would give it a jackal like laugh to unnerve his opponent. Even though he doubted anyone could bypass his Kumo, he just had to make sure in case of emergencies. Wraps was able to run at jounin speeds for a quick swipe and decapitate or to wrap the victim in its unusually durable bandages _or_ to distract for an ally to incapacitate.

Naruto himself had made a drastic change in his dress code. He now wore black ANBU styled pants with numerous pockets for his scrolls with his kunai and shuriken holder on his right leg and hips respectively, a black long sleeved shirt with a green stripe going down the middle, a dark green hoodie with hidden pockets, fingerless gloves so as not to block his chakra strings, black sandals with his half mask hanging off his neck and his black glasses over his eyes. He looked good, if he says so himself. Or if he took the fact that Hinata kept fainting every time he waved at her, he really needed to read into that.

The boy had also gone to a black market tattoo artist and paid for her to disregard his age so she could tattoo his special seals (he gave here the kanji of what it looked like) all over his arms and a spider tattoo, that had Kenchi sealed into it, on his left wrist. ( _'tattoos are awesome'_ Naruto mused.)

Then, for the last month he has been practicing with all his puppets both individually and collectively till it became instinctive. Naruto could now control each puppet with three of his fingers. The boy also kept a sketch pad and a pencil with him in his hoodie pocket in case he had any inspiration. He had not even spent more than an hour in the kage's mansion.

He was now ready to start the academy. This would start in the next… 2 days.

Great…

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

She felt _horrible._

She felt like her heart had just shrivelled up and died.

She hadn't seen _him_ in the last _5 months._

After _his_ birthday party 5 months ago she had not even _seen_ _him_ so that she could apologize for being a bad mother.

She has been crying for the last few months in his room, begging anyone who could hear for her son to forgive her. To forgive them. A sob escaped her throat.

Kushina Uzumaki has made it a personal mission to clean Naruto's already pristine room, just for her to feel like she had done something for _him_.

Presently, the woman stood in the kitchen in a trance as she watched the cheerfully blue sky. What was his favourite colour again? Why couldn't the sky just darken and feel as bad as she felt. Taking a deep breathe she continued her task of washing the dishes after another lunch that Naruto had been absent from. Where was he, did he have enough food to eat? Was the place he slept in warm? Safe?

The only relief the woman felt was that Naruto had not completely severed ties with the family. The red head had devoted all her afternoons to interrogating her other child, Mito on Naruto's well being. He was well, that was the only reason she could sleep at night.

She felt two arms circle around her waist and a head settle on her shoulder. Minato.

"We were idiots, weren't we minato-koi" the woman whispered

"Yes we were" Minato answered, "but I'm sure we can change that fact soon"

"That what you said yesterday and the day before and the day before…" the woman trailed on,

"I know, I know. But I have a gut feeling…" he kissed her neck, "trust my gut feeling, hime"

She melted into the kissed and turned around, kissing the man lightly then soon it turned into a full on make out session with Kushina on the kitchens counter moaning slightly into Minato's mouth… they to get to their room… they needed to get to their…

"Ehem!"

Minato jumped back so fast he stuck to the ceiling; the couple turned to the intruder only to see a stoically red faced Naruto whose black spectacled (black glasses, right?) eyes were trying to look anywhere but at his parents with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

"Sochi-kun…" Kushina whispered, subtly checking to see if she was under in a genjutsu. Her heart thumped, maybe Minato _was_ right.

"Tou-sama, kaa-sama" the blonde boy bowed to his parents, breaking their hearts slightly by his formality to them, "I would like to make a request"

There was a long and pregnant silence, Minato held his breathe and Kushina had to physically restrict herself from sobbing into the boy's chest. They were his parents; he did not have to ask for permission to make a _request._

Taking charge, dropped from the ceiling, knelt down in front of the boy and clasped a hand on his shoulder, noticing silently that his left hand twitched almost too quickly, and gave Naruto a small smile, "you don't need to ask for permission to make a request, Naruto-kun, just make the request."

' _so that's what they want to do'_ the boy thought darkly, _'well four years of ignoring me would not wash over overnight'._ "Hai, I would like for you two to fill in and sign the Guardian section of the registration form to the Academy". True, he could have asked Shibi to sign it for him but unluckily for him everyone-or most of everyone-knew he was the son of the Yondaime Hokage; he had to have their signatures before he could go to the academy.

"Of course we will fill the form, just drop it in my office later, ok?"

"Hai, Tou-sama, thank you"

"No need to thank us, Naruto-kun"

Silence. Chocking silence. Minato stood up and waved at them, telling them that he needed to get back to work.

"Sochi-kun…"

"Kaa-sama?"

She held her hands over her mouth to stem the sobbing that wanted to wreck its havoc in her body and took a step towards him…

"I have somewhere to go, later" Naruto muttered quickly, bowing and walked briskly out of the kitchen. Leaving his mother in the now empty kitchen crying into her hands. Mito silently walked into the kitchen, after witnessing the whole thing, and brought her mother into a hug, occasionally stroking her back.

"Don't you worry, kaa-chan, would be back to normal in no time" the young girl declared. That was the thing she needed. Just a burst of part-naive mentality, even if it were for the day, so that the tears would stop.

"Sochi-kun…"

Kushina felt horrible.

 **Authors Note**

 **Well… I feel horrible.**

 **How did you guys like this chapter. Nice? Ok? Meh?**

 **What of my puppet ideas, helpful suggestions are much appreciated guys.**

 **Oh yeah and recently I found out that** _ **anything**_ **inspires me into writing a fiction. Just like a spider on my kid sisters stuffed bear inspired me to write this story. Right now, I'm running out of pages in my hard back notebook, do you guys want me to post them? Their mostly one-shot's, sure, but I can always expand them or whatever.**

 **That's it! Review!**

 **B.j**


	3. Chapter 3

Next chapter up. Thanks for all the reviews, much appreciated.

Thank you **TheMysteriousOtaku** for your helpful/youthful review, corrections to this chapter has been made.

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

 **Last time on: Greatness**

… "You don't need to ask for permission to make a request, Naruto-kun, just make the request."

' _so that's what they want to do'_ the boy thought darkly, _'well four years of ignoring me would not wash over overnight'._ "Hai, I would like for you two to fill in and sign the Guardian section of the registration form to the Academy". True, he could have asked Shibi to sign it for him but unluckily for him everyone-or most of everyone-knew he was the son of the Yondaime Hokage; he had to have their signatures before he could go to the academy.

…

"I have somewhere to go, later" Naruto muttered quickly, bowing and walked briskly out of the kitchen. Leaving his mother in the now empty kitchen crying into her hands. Mito silently walked into the kitchen, after witnessing the whole thing, and brought her mother into a hug, occasionally stroking her back.

"Don't you worry, kaa-chan, would be back to normal in no time" the young girl declared. That was the thing she needed. Just a burst of part-naive mentality, even if it were for the day, so that the tears would stop.

"Sochi-kun…"

Kushina felt horrible.

 **Now…**

CHAPTER 3

The only reason Naruto had even considered attending the Academy was because he wanted to be a ninja. But _now_ , looking at his classmates for the foreseeable future, he made a quick and slightly childish resolve: _'I'm graduating early'_.

Now, the Academy was split into four years. That is most new students were brought in when they were 8 years old and left when they were 12. In the first year the ninja aspirants were taught the basic knowledge of most of the ninja arts (nin-, tai-, gen-, fuinjutsu), the second year was mostly focused on the history of Konoha and all its hokage's, the third year sees that the students were taught on what Konoha knew of the other main hidden villages while also still polishing on the students practical knowledge of the ninja arts and teaching them on the three basic ninjutsu they needed to know before they could graduate, the last year was just revision on all that was taught in the students school years.

From Naruto's self-analysis, he acknowledged the fact that he was _horrible_ in genjutsu. Horrible like he couldn't even make or dispel an E-rank genjutsu to save his life, so he couldn't form a regular _bunshin no jutsu_ but his _henge_ was _solid_. He found out when he asked Shibi to test him on it. He knew Konoha's history and the entire elemental nations history (through passing merchants, he found out Iwa's from the library) and his taijutsu and fuinjutsu were the best in the class. He would humbly rank himself a high chunin with his puppetry (which surprisingly, his parents still hadn't found out about) and high jounin with his taijutsu. To become better than that, he would need to have experience from missions and spars/fights with stronger opponents.

The problems could be easily fixed.

Since he had gone through his father's library, he found out that there were elemental and non-elemental bunshin. He had tried forming a _kage bunshin no jutsu_ but-most likely because of his overly dense chakra-the _kage bunshin_ came out bloated and sickly green. After that failure, he bought some chakra paper and found out that he had a strong primary earth affinity and a weak secondary fire affinity. He tried his hand at _donton bunshin_ but his clones were still green, so that failure left him with no other option: he would have to invent his own cloning technique.

He made 11 of his defective and ugly _kage bunshin_ and had them stay without dispelling doing the fire affinity exercises, this lasted 2 weeks. He then channelled fire affinity chakra into his chakra strings and had it mould itself into a rough outline of himself and then made them add details to it, this took 20 minutes. He would need hand seals to make it come out faster and in more numbers. He chose the seals _ram_ and _tiger_ after he had his shadow clones test all 12 in chains of two until he got the desired result, just in case they back fired/exploded on him. _Ram_ because it was used to summon his chakra faster and _tiger_ because it helped summon his fire affinity chakra better. He didn't even need his strings for it anymore-after a week that is. All he needed to do was to use the hand seals and have the image of himself and the number of clones in his mind. The only downside was that after performing the fire clone, his green chakra would steam out of his ears a little; thankfully it was quiet, odourless and not even toxic. His limit was 76 clones and those clones were _ridiculously_ sturdy.

For his lack of experience in genjutsu, he studied thoroughly on how to detect an illusion since he had no hope in casting any sort of illusion. When he detects it, he would use some of his strings to latch onto the ground and would expel his chakra, forcefully. He had to latch onto the ground so that he would not be blown away. The downside of this was that, since his chakra was so dense and since he was used to it coming out of his tenketsu as strings, it was extremely painful. Hopefully with time the pain would lessen. The upside though was that, if his chakra was to touch the caster of the illusion, then the person would loose control of his chakra until he extracted the chakra out of the victim's body or 12 hours later the chakra would leach out of the person's body. Sami Yamanaka learnt this the bad way, he was still apologising even though the man just smiled it off, "you did good, Naruto-kun." The radius, per say, was 15 feet away from his body.

Plus, he had to constantly practice his taijutsu and his puppetry so he would not get rusty.

He was ready to graduate… in 9 months time.

Naruto had to keep up his marks in the academy so that his teachers would recommend him to graduate early or he would recommend himself anyway. The boy ensured that he passed at least 97% of all his tests at the top of the class and his practical knowledge above everyone else.

This is where we find him.

The students of the academy were around the sparring mat outside the classes. Cheering for the fighters or booing or remaining indifferent. Students stepped onto the sparring mat one by one as the class's sensei, Iruka Umino, called their names. Most of the matches were uneventful, besides the match between the chubby Chouji Akimichi and the egotistical Sasuke Uchiha, where the Akimichi clan heir tried to bow out of the fight knowing that Sasuke was more skilled than him, but the 'last' loyal Uchiha made the grand mistake of calling the other boy fat.

Everyone on the sidelines took in a collective breathe, _'Oh boy'_

A lesson was learnt that day. Well, more like Sasuke learnt a lesson that day. Do NOT call Chouji fat, dear _God_ do Not call that boy _fat!_

The Akimichi beat Sasuke into the ground, stomped on any visible part of the poor boys body-which was everywhere-and had to be physically restrained by Iruka and Shikamaru Nara-Chouji's friend. Needless to say Sasuke broke some bones.

The last match for the day was: "Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze vs. Ameryo!"

' _I actually thought they'd have to end class early, well unlucky him'_ Naruto chuckled mentally. Silence swept through his classmates. Most held their breaths and watched the match intensely. Why? Because the boy was the smartest in the class, racking in marks higher than Sasuke. Add to the fact that in all his taijutsu spars nobody who watched him, not even Iruka, could remember just _how_ he won. The ANBU even made it into a game to find out themselves which style the boy used, only a handful of Hyuuga found out and even they couldn't describe it well enough. (Thank goodness _I'm_ telling the story eh?).

He stepped into the ring, expressionless and examined his grinning opponent.

Ameryo wore a simple light blue t-shirt with a white shuriken design on it, white shorts and blue sandals. The boy was pale skinned with naturally bleached blonde hair, but it looked more white than blonde. He was an orphan, if one goes by the fact that he had no last name. He also was very cocky.

"Prepare to lose, Namikaze!" Ameryo smiled, "because _I_ will become the next Hokage!"

"Oh? And I should care, why?" Naruto deadpanned

"You are in my way" he answered immediately, still smiling, but his voice came out as a growl.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "Good luck to you then, Ameryo-san" he bowed and took his stance for **The Dizzy Spell Stinging Fist** , "because you will most definitely need it", his face still infuriatingly expressionless while his opponent took the academy style taijutsu stance.

Iruka looked at both students, "both fighters ready?" they nodded, "alright… Hajime!"

No one moved. Both students watched each other silently. Then in a snap, Ameryo rushed over at Naruto with his fist drawn back, vainly expecting an easy win (most likely he was in la-la land in all of Naruto's spars). Naruto deftly swatted aside the thrown fist and palm struck weakly at his opponent's chest for space.

Naruto used the distance between them and waved his right hand-open palmed-in front of Ameryo's face so quickly it made after images, his left arm drawn to his side of his belly as if preparing to give Ameryo an upper cut. The after images diverged then converged together, making Ameryo think Naruto had a green spiral pupil eye in the palm of his hand that glowed and turned anti-clockwise, hypnotically.

Ameryo swayed on his feet, his eyes drooping slightly and his arms limp at his sides. He felt like he was spinning on the same spot and at the same time standing stock still. The audience was also in a daze, swaying even as they sat down. Naruto allowed himself a faint smirk when he saw that Ameryo was in the deep in the spell then he released the tension in his left arm struck the boy on his side and kicked the boys feet from under him making him fall limply onto the mat. _'Dizzy spell fist: first arm'_ he said in his mind.

Numerous students had accused him of using some sort of jutsu in the spar during the first few weeks of the academy. Those accusations were immediately put to rest when a second year student by the name of Neji Hyuuga picked on his sister, calling her "a weak girl riding on the coat-tails of her father, the Hokage." Naruto, after listening to his sister cry, challenged the poor fool to a spar. An excuse to legally beat him into the ground without it being frowned upon.

Neji, also very cocky, accepted the challenge. The poor fool.

 _Flash back_

The two challengers stood a few feet away from each other on training ground 4, a place where it was both non restrictive and still have enough space for an audience. Half of the ninja population, which included the Hokage and his wife, all the jounin, most chunin and a few genin, came to watch what the hokage's eldest twin son could do against the prodigy of the Hyuuga clan.

"You should just give up, Namikaze- _sama_ " Neji said, his head tilting towards the audience that came, "before you disgrace yourself before your parents"

Naruto did not even give him a reply but looked towards the unofficial proctor, the ANBU operative Tora, who raised his hands for silence.

"Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze vs. Neji Hyuuga. Are both fighters ready" they nodded, Tora brought his hand down in a chop between them "Hajime" and jumped back for space.

"I'll give you one more chance to forfeit, _Namikaze_ " the Hyuuga prodigy sneered, disregarding the hokage's prescience, but at Naruto's defiant stance he nodded to himself, "so be it." He rushed in, _Byakugan_ blazing, with two of his right index and middle fingers laced with chakra and made to strike Naruto's shoulders. Naruto, knowing better than blocking a _Jyuuken_ strike, ducked under the blow while mentally contemplating whether it was possible to disorientate a person who could see almost 360 degrees around himself.

' _No, I can't do that'_ he thought as he dodged blow over blow of chakra laced strikes, they were coming at him faster and faster due to Neji's frustration. _'Maybe I should test my speed against his'_.

He then side stepped another blow and sent 7 quick punches to Neji's abdomen, then a snap kick to the back of his knees. The Hyuuga barely dodged the kick, but was unfortunate enough to catch the blows. They came so fast he didn't see or feel them until he dodged the kick which he luckily saw.

The _byakugan_ user spat out a mouthful of blood onto the ground and swayed slightly while clutching where Naruto tagged him. He looked at Naruto, who had not even dropped his defensive stance, his eyes hardened.

"How did you move so fast?" Naruto just raised an eyebrow and switched his stance to a more offensive one. Neji growled under his breathe and charged again.

The crowd watched with bated breathe as the Hyuuga prodigy rushed over to Naruto and sent strikes to more lethal areas, practically frothing at the mouth. Whilst Naruto showed surprising agility and dodged, side stepped and attacked back with at least 4 punches and a kick.

Dodge strike to the throat, 4 punches to the left arm and a kick to the right knee.

Dodge strike to the heart, 4 punches to the chest and a kick to the side.

Dodge strike to the kidneys, 4 punches to left leg and another kick to the side.

Everyone watched as Neji's strikes came slower and his breathing became more haggard, while Naruto was practically dancing around the boy, his arms and legs blurring around him. When Neji's attacks stopped, Naruto's didn't. He systematically broke down any resistance the other boy had and now alternated and sent him more kicks than punches and even the occasional knee and elbow, basically running the Hyuuga into the ground.

The Hyuuga lay on his back struggling to breathe while Naruto stood above him, allowing a glare on his formerly expressionless face, not even the slightest bit winded.

"Train harder. You need to do more stamina exercises. Try incorporating kicks to your strikes." Naruto murmured so only his downed opponent could hear, "better luck next time" he then turned to Tora and nodded.

"Winner, Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze."

A few days later when Neji finally recuperated, he was bombarded with questions by both ninja and students on how he lost the match. He just said, "He is _really_ fast." So most just assumed that he sent blows so fast they would enter a sort of trance.

 _Flashback end_

Naruto really liked the fighting style. It depended on speed most of all, no jutsu needed or-for masters-no need to channel his chakra into his arms to increase its speed. Perfect for his puppetry.

The blonde the raised his left hand and snapped his fingers, the sound echoed throughout the clearing loudly. Everyone took a collective deep breathe; some ANBU even fell off their perches. Thankfully, he was not proud enough to say that he could best them in a fair match because they were faster than him and they could recover faster than most jounin. The ANBU that fell of the tree were most likely new or were unfamiliar with watching him fight.

Naruto rolled his right shoulders and winced, _'I need to up my training'_. The best (or worst. Depends on how you look at it) part of the style was that it was incomplete. Most of the scroll he was learning from had been eaten away by old age. It only detailed how to use one arm and both arms but not the legs or even the whole body. If that's even possible.

Iruka coughed into his hand, still dazed, "winner, Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze." Naruto bowed to the silent crowd and the other silent crowd and walked back to the tree he was sitting under, watching amused as the students gave him awed gazes. "…Today's classes are over. Enjoy your weekend" with that everyone separated into groups, some still sending him looks.

"Naruto-nii-san! Naruto-nii-san!" a voice from yelled from behind him, he sighed inwardly. "nii-san your fight was awesome, I mean you were all like _whoosh_ and he was like _ugh_ and then he passed out like wow!" all the while flailing her arms above her head dramatically. "Nii-san you're so cool!"

"No I'm not, your so cool" he chuckled and nudged her side, she blushed a brick red. "So Mito-chan how's your training?"

"Its ok, I guess" she replied while waving to the smiling merchants, "I still can't make my blocks stronger in the family taijutsu style" Mito whined.

"Try doing push-ups and squats"

"Of course" she scoffed, nodding to a couple of waving chunin. "I've already been doing that!"

"Then do double of that, reduce your ramen intake and drink enough milk" at her disbelieving look he said "believe me, it works"

"Ok nii-san, ill try…"

He patted the red head on the head and smiled slightly, "you'll get it in time Mito"

"Naruto-nii-san!" she yelled red faced to the amusement of those watching the interaction, "we're in public" she said as she smoothed her hair down.

Hearing this, his smile widened and he pulled her into a head lock and ruffled her head, ignoring her indignant yells for him to stop.

Off in the distance, Minato Namikaze watched the interaction quietly; happy that his son could still act like a child despite his seclusion.

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

At night, a shadow sped over the roof tops of Konoha heading towards the north gate. He stopped at the last building and peered over the side, looking at the two guards stationed there. He threw two non-poisoned senbon at their necks and watched satisfied as they crumbled towards the ground. He jumped down and walked leisurely towards the gate and was even more surprised that the security was even more lax than he thought because it was the time of peace. Even though he was not a sensor, he for sure knew there was no other living thing around to watch him go.

A stray moon beam from under the tree he was walked under caught his blonde hair, light green eyes and slight smirk. He stopped at the gate and looked at the downed guards, smirk gone and scowl in place. _'Pathetic.'_

' _Ram, tiger. Katon bunshin no jutsu.'_ Naruto intoned quietly and with a quick burst of fire a clone appeared. Naruto made sure to pump it with half of his chakra so that it would last for at least 6 months.

"You know what to do?" the real Naruto whispered,

"Hai boss!" the clone shouted, conveniently forgetting that his 'boss' was trying to be quiet and discrete.

Naruto rolled his eyes, "idiot keep your voice down." He then cleared his throat, "keep up appearances, find inspiration for other puppets and sketch it down, don't use the **Dizzy spell fist** fully _;_ just use its speed aspect to end the spar quickly, lets hope our classmates forget how I fight, learn 3 donton C-ranks from Sarutobi-oji-sama to complement our katon, learn at least 1 jutsu for all the elements if you can. There is enough chakra in you for a few other clones, do _not_ waste it. Above all else, do not act suspicious. I would expect a report when I come back. Am I clear?"

"Crystal, boss" the clone nodded, "ne boss, where are you going again?"

The real blonde stayed quiet in thought then he said, "From what I over heard Jiraiya-ero-teme rant to Tou-sama, Sasori has a larger spy network than him, they are even more loyal than his own." The clone nodded, agreeing with his 'boss' "even though I do not want to be a carbon copy of Sasori, a spy network does sound like a great asset and people loyal to me sounds even better. I can't start in Iwa for obvious reasons, Suna has regular correspondence with Konoha, and Kumo is also a bad decision since because of the Hyuuga incident their borders security has also been tighter expecting a surprise attack, so that leaves Kiri." The clone's eyes widened dramatically, as if it didn't already know this. "I know their in a civil war, but admittedly that place is challenging enough and the border can be easily breached, it's a good place to start. When I get what I want, I'll move about, getting other loyal spies and informants till my time is up. Then I'll come back here a week before you disperse. The academy is too boring for me to waste these last 9 months on doing nothing but training, I need a new challenge. Anything else?"

"I've got nothing boss" clone Naruto shook his head,

"Good. Now, get back into the village and act natural. See you later" he waved and ran further into the forest. The clone watched for a while, glad that it had good memory. When his 'boss' was out of sight he nodded to himself and ran back to Higuarashi's workshop-which was where he has been sleeping-so that he could get started on what he should be doing till his the real Naruto came back…

Even though it was strange that he was talking to himself, he needed a way to ensure that all he was doing was not a dream. That he was really going out into the wider world and making part of his dream come true. A stupid way of proving this, I know.

But the funny part of all this was that he was just 8. Years. Old.

 **Authors Note**

 **Hope you guys like this, took me all day to write. Thanks for all the reviews, I'll still need more.**

 **If anyone has any inspiration for new puppets or do you want me to guys want me to start making human puppets, PM me a description or the name of the ninja/person respectively.**

 **Did you guys like the fight scenes? Did I under power Neji? Remember he was 9 years old at the time.**

 **Oh yeah. After seeing how I painted Naruto in this story, it is very hard to see how Hinata would fit into this equation. This is very hard for me to say but I am very biased towards NaruHina, so if you don't like the pairing; disregard my comment in the first chapter and** **help** **me choose another pairing. No older people PLEASE! And definitely NO HAREM! Can't stand it.**

 **Or even no pairing.**

 **If you like this story enough… Review!**

 **B.j.**


	4. Chapter 4

I apologise for my silence, the chapter ideas are never ending!

Thank you all for your reviews.

Guys keep and names and ideas coming, they might just make a chapter. ***grins***

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto**

 **Last time on: Greatness**

… "Ne boss, where are you going again?"

"Even though I do not want to be a carbon copy of Sasori, a spy network does sound like a great asset and people loyal to me sounds even better. I can't start in Iwa for obvious reasons, Suna has regular correspondence with Konoha, and Kumo is also a bad decision since because of the Hyuuga incident their borders security has also been tighter expecting a surprise attack, so that leaves Kiri."

 **Now…**

CHAPTER 4

An eight legged… _thing_ skittered blazingly over and passed the borders of Kiriagakure no Sato under the trees. The surrounding environment was getting mistier by the metre. It was relatively quiet besides the near silent sound of crunching leaves until it had to unseal a kunai from its right arm and deflect a thrown kunai. It ran into a clearing in the forests and waited patiently for its attackers to join him.

A minute later two other figures jumped into the clearing and had to take three steps backwards before they gained some semblance of self-control.

"My god" the shorter person muttered, he had on goggles. His distinguishing features were the fact that he had blue hair and shark-like teeth. Naruto assumed that he wasn't much older than himself. He carried on his back one of the Seven Swords of the Mist, **Hiramekarei** (the twin sword) "what are you?"

"That question is highly offensive, stranger," Kumo hissed, sending shivers down their spines, they took another step back much to the hidden Naruto's pleasure "first things first, are you two by any chance part of the rebel faction of Kiri?"

"It depends on what you are here for _creature_ " the other person, much braver than the first speaker, spat. He was taller and wore an eye patch, "how do we know that you have good intentions?"

"You don't" Kumo hissed, sending shudders raking through the two ninja, "but I swear to you my intentions are good, towards the rebels that is"

"Pardon me if I don't believe you." The second man said. He went through some hand seals and activated the hidden _byakugan_ behind his eye patch. He examined Kumo and relaxed a bit when he saw a boy about two years younger than Choujuro with midnight black hair and green pupiless eyes (he henge'd) wink within it at him motioning for him to keep quiet. He nodded. "He's safe-"

"What! How is _that_ safe!" the younger of the two yelled, frantically pointing at the almost perfect cross between a man and a spider, "look at it!"

"In my day, Choujuro, younger ones listen to what their elders say without question" the second man said sternly.

"I'm sorry Ao, but you can't really blame me" the now named Choujuro murmured.

"Understandable, now let us take hime back to Mei-sama" Ao said.

"Hai!"

The two ninja led the way into Kiri's rebel faction base. The road was silent, but that changed when they were surprisingly surrounded by the at least 40 of the opposite faction of the war, the Mizukage's supporters.

"Look 'it we've got here boys! Two bloodline lovers and their pet freak" one of the ambushing ninja said sneered, "Mizukage-sama would be pleased if we bring there heads and that there sword to him."

"Hai Tomoi-san lets bring back their heads!" four other ninja parroted.

Ao and Choujuro took their stances, realized that they were painfully out-numbered. That was until the grotesque like creature chuckle-hissed loudly. "Oh? What makes you think you can win against us?"

"There's 43 of us and three of you _freak!_ " the first ninja, apparently the leader, yelled.

"no… there's 43 of you and…" he quickly unrolled a scroll from…somewhere and, in a small puff of smoke, summoned a cute 5 year old girl that wore a purple kimono with black floral patterns on it and black sandals. She had small pouty lips, back hair, light green pupils and slightly tanned skin. Oh yeah, she also had a faint blush.

There was silence. Then all the surrounding ninja burst into uproarious laughter, watching as the small girl scuffed her feet on the ground with her head down. Ao and Choujuro sighed quietly, wondering which kind of crack pot summons a _cute_ little girl to fight-she didn't even look like she could hold _any_ kind of weapon. Even a standard issue _kunai!_

"Look at her! She's too cute to be threatening!" most of the ninja shouted. While the rest squealed "kawaii!"

Virtually nothing could make this girl in any way threatening. If only they knew.

Ko's head snapped up and she opened her mouth, at the back of her throat a seal charged up and when it was fully charged numerous ninja wire shot out of it, wrapped around and pulled in at least 30 of the laughing and gushing ninja who disappeared into the child-puppets mouth. This happened in 4 seconds.

There was total and absolute silence. No one expected that to happen.

Not giving the remaining ninja any time to think or run, she snapped open her mouth again and sucked in the remaining ninja.

Then she burped and giggled, "Oops, excuse me!" Ao and Choujuro gaped at the adorable child, "what?"

Kumo chuckle-hissed quietly to himself and sealed back Ko in a small puff of smoke. "Let us continue our journey, please." Both ninja that witness the fantastical sight dumbly nodded and proceeded on their way to the rebels' hideout.

"Uhm, sir? Are they… dead" the blue haired boy murmured with a horrified look plastered on his face.

"No they are not," the puppet hissed "not yet at least. They would remain in there until I release them or they die in a month's time from lack of food and water and fade into oblivion."

"So…" Ao also murmured, visibly humbled by the sight. Still trying to wrap his mind around what he has just seen. "Did you say you were going to aid us in the war?"

"I wish to strike a deal with your leader before I can give you an answer."

And with that the three continued down their path to the rebels' hideout with the poor blue haired Choujuro twitching any time he thought he saw the half spider move his arms.

' _This… boy will be a very valuable ally to make in this war'_ the eye patch wearing war veteran said to himself, _'I hope Mei-sama sees this as well'_

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

Back in Konoha, Naruto's clone was in the house of one of the first few people who acknowledged him. One of the first people to even bother noticing and looking under the mask that he used to constantly wear before his parents took the clan heir rights from him. One of the few people he could actually be himself around.

"How are you, Naruto-kun?" Hiruzen Sarutobi, the 'Kami no Shinobi' said to our young hero's clone as he reached over to the other side of the small table and poured him a cup of tea, Naruto nodded his thanks and took a sip.

"I'm fine, Sarutobi-oji-sama. Did you finally find out what has been killing your gardenia flowers?"

"Yes I have found out what is killing them but luring the damnable creature out is another problem entirely" the wise man exclaimed tiredly. "But enough about me, I hear from some of your sensei's that you are the best in the class, by any chance do you plan on graduating early?"

"Do you want me to graduate early, ji-sama?"

"That is entirely up to you, just know that whatever decision you make I would remain proud of you" the Sandaime Hokage smiled at his surrogate grandson.

'Naruto's' eyes glazed over with unshed tears and he pawed his face with the sleeve of his black shirt, his green hoodie folded at his side. "Th-thank you, ji-sama."

"no need to thank me m' boy. Is there another reason you are here?"

"actually yes, since I've decided to graduate early," here the old mans smile widened "I want to be totally prepared for what the shinobi world throws at me so I would like for you to please teach me some jutsu. Donton jutsu specifically."

"Naruto-kun, when you graduate your team's sensei would teach you jutsu" Hiruzen pointed out.

"I know that, but it never hurts to know them in advance" the boy whined, trying to put his face as innocently as possible.

The old man looked at the boy silently for a few minutes, then he slowly nodded his head, "ok Naruto-kun, first tell me why you need donton jutsu specifically" he said already in sensei mode.

"Because I have more offensive techniques than defensive" he answered quickly, his eyes meeting the elders firmly.

"What offensive techniques do you have?"

"I have my taijutsu style, my puppets and my fire clones"

The Sandaime nodded his head slowly. He already knew about his puppets because he was one of the few people the boy confided in. Then he did a double take, "wait, fire clones?"

"Yes, fire clones" 'Naruto' said as if it was the most common thing in the world. After a few seconds of silence he face palmed "I haven't told you about them yet?" Hiruzen shook his head negatively, "it's a type of elemental clone I created from my fire affinity since I couldn't make any other clone"

"I see… may I see it?" 'Naruto' nodded and formed the hand seals quickly, then in a quick burst of fire a doppelganger sat beside him looking at the former Kage with a small smile. Hiruzen also noticed that there was a small stream of green smoke coming from the clone's ears before it stopped. "Marvellous, Naruto-kun! You made a new cloning technique from scratch. This is genius!"

'Naruto' blushed and scratched the back of his head "it was nothing ji-sama."

Hiruzen tutted and stood up from his seat. He walked over to a shelf and took out a scroll before he walked back to 'Naruto' and handed it to him.

The reason why Hiruzen Sarutobi was known all over the elemental nations as the 'Kami no Shinobi' was because he was able to master all affinities of chakra: fire, water, earth, wind and lightening. Another reason was that he had lead Konoha through two of the three great ninja wars wisely. It was also know, despite his old age, that nobody was willing to pick a fight with the man, because-in simple terms-you will be _destroyed_.

"That is the **Earth wall technique**. If you can form a good, strong wall after reading the scroll come back to me and collect another jutsu. It would be harder than that" he said as he sat down. 'Naruto' handed the scroll to its clone and told it to start learning the jutsu, "so it also has the same perks as the shadow clone. Tell me Naruto-kun, would you be willing to share your new invention with other ninja."

"Of course I am, but the technique is very chakra intensive; like shadow clones"

"I see, then I should tell Minato to put it into the forbidden scroll" the man murmured to himself. It was comfortably quiet for a few minutes except for the sound of them both people sipping their almost forgotten tea.

"Ji-sama, do you think I should be a front line assault sort of ninja?" Naruto quietly asked, because he valued the mans opinion very much.

"I'm not the one meant to answer that question, you are." The man chuckled. "Tell me m' boy, what sort of ninja would you become?"

"I'm well rounded enough but if I want to choose ill go for either infiltration and assassination or espionage and sabotage, maybe I'll dabble in a bit of torture and interrogation." The 'boy' said as he scratched his chin in thought. "Yes that sounds about right."

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow at what the boy said but shrugged, "you wish to become a spy like Jiraiya?"

"No, I don't want to be anything like Jiraiya; it's just that a spy network is something to drool over." The man laughed at his answer.

"Good, then I can recommend a sensei for you to Minato when you graduate."

"Thank you, ji-sama" 'Naruto' smiled as he took the last sip of his tea and stood up, "well; I have a lot of things to do today. Ill see you later" 'he' said as he bowed and walked out of the wise old mans house.

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

Over in Kiri, the three people had finally reached the hideout of the rebel faction.

The mist was denser here; it made Naruto wonder how they even knew the path because he could just barely see them the few feet that they were walking in front of him. Ao stopped before a thick iron door that looked as if it had materialized out of nowhere. He rapped his knuckle three times and waited.

An eye slit on the door opened sharply and looked at them briefly before asking, "Who is that, Ao-sama?"

"He is a future ally," the eye patch wearing man answered,

"I don't trust him, but I'll trust your decision commander" the man at the other side of the door said before he snapped the eye slit closed and a thunderous lock was opened. The door creaked open allowing Ao, Choujuro and Kumo to pass through before it was slammed shut.

The walk toward the leader of the rebel factions command tent was nerve wracking, for the rebels that is. One wont blame them because they had to bear witness to a man sized half man, half spider skittering slowly after two of their more prominent members while it grinned and waved at them. It was terrifying.

Finally, they reached the command tent and Ao told the still unnamed stranger to wait outside for a few minute while he went in with the blue haired boy. 2 minutes later a scuffle within the tent could be heard then it stopped abruptly, 5 minutes later a ruffled up and red faced Choujuro told him to come inside.

Even though Mei Terumi had been warned of the fact that the hopefully future ally was within a freakish half spider, she couldn't help but flinch and her heart race when Kumo finally walked in. he bowed to her and she gulped and bowed back.

Mei was very beautiful. She had brown ankle length hair and she wore a deep purple cloth that revealed more than it hid, the dress had a slit at her right side that went up her waist and she wore black shorts under it. She had a wonderful body and flaunted it to the world proudly.

Taking a deep breathe, Mei stood straighter and said "my name-name is Mei Terumi and I am the leader of the rebel forces of Kiriagakure no Sato. What is your name?"

"Call me Kumo, Mei-sama" he bowed again, "I am here to offer my services to your cause."

"Why do you want to help Kiri? What do you hope to gain?" Kumo nodded towards the guards at the corners of the tent, she nodded. "Can you guys please step out for a minute, thank you" she looked back at the grotesque creation when the last guard stepped out.

"To be totally honest, I'm making an investment in this hidden village" when he noticed that the woman send him some killer intent, he held up his hands "I mean that in the least offensive way possible. I wish to aid in this war to start up my plans."

"Which plans, Kumo-san?" Ao asked from the side.

"If you didn't already know, Ao and you did not already tell Mei-sama, I am a puppet."

Choujuro actually breathed a sigh of relief; Mei looked at the boy and smiled while saying "so the big strong Choujuro was afraid of a puppet."

"I-I was not afraid, Mei-sama, I can't sense chakra" he murmured dourly.

The woman ruffled his hair and smiled, "In time, Choujuro, in time." She then turned back to Kumo and said "if you are a puppet where is the puppet master?"

The now known puppet hissed but not from its mouth. The chest and stomach opened to reveal a cavity in which a boy with black hair, green pupiless eyes and pale skin to climbed out easily. He looked roughly 8 years old and he wore a black half face mask, with his equally black glasses in his hair. He had on dark green coloured ANBU pants, a black long sleeved shirt and an equally dark green hoodie jacket. The boy sealed the huge puppet into a tattoo seal on his wrist and turned to look at them with a stoic expression on his face.

"So _you_ are Kumo?" Choujuro said, happy that the puppet was gone.

"Kumo is an alias; I will tell you my real name if you swear to secrecy until I am ready to reveal it." They nodded. "My real name is Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze."

"I have never heard of a Namikaze with black hair." Ao said pointedly.

"I am in a henge."

"If it is a henge, I would be able to see through it." He said pointedly again.

"My henge's are solid." The boy answered back sharply, folding his arms.

The veteran scoffed, "impossible, there is no such thing as a solid henge."

Naruto remained silent for a minute then his body rippled and changed to an exact replica of the other boy, Choujuro. Ao looked at him through his _byakugan_ and paled.

"It really is solid…"

Naruto nodded and changed back to his former form, he looked at the gaping Terumi and said "do you people wish for my aid or not?"

"Now we do!" she exclaimed, "but how is a solid henge going to help us end the war."

"I had no intention of using a henge to end the war. I plan on using my puppets."

"You mean that tiny puppet girl Ao was ranting about?" she said, ignoring the mans offended mutterings.

"Before I can say that I need to know how to end the war." He replied slowly while he scratched his cheek.

"We need to cut the head off the snake, so we need to kill the Mizukage."

"Naruto nodded slowly, "what can you tell me about him."

Mei motioned for him to sit down at the command table across from her and laced her fingers under her chin. "He was a good Kage, one upon a time, but years ago he snapped and started commanding his soldiers to kill bloodline users, calling us filth. He is a jinchuriki of the 3 tailed turtle." She paused when she noticed that the formerly expressionless boy suddenly smiled slightly but she continued, "He is highly proficient with the hook staff, a master of water based ninjutsu and has extraordinary taijutsu. Quite frankly, I don't know _how_ we're going to beat him but we can at least die trying."

"When you say he is a jinchuriki, does he ever use his bijou's chakra?"

"Yes, when he is forced to he will. Now young man, any ideas on how we could beat that tyrant?"

Naruto nodded and smiled slightly, "I have been told I'm am very good with seals-"

"Very good is an understatement, boy" Ao scoffed, "do you even plan on releasing those poor souls."

"we'll talk about that later" he turned back to the rebel leader, "there is unlimited possibilities to one who is proficient with seals" she nodded, already knowing this "I can not have Ko, the puppet that swallowed the opposing platoon, swallow the Mizukage because his bijou's chakra would just help him break out. So I plan on making a puppet that can actually suck out his and his bijou's chakra or super suppressing it and then incapacitate him. That is one way of winning the war."

"Is that even possible." The blue haired boy said from the side. Then he face palmed and muttered "of course it is."

Naruto smiled at him and nodded "of course it is" he looked back at the woman "if I go with that plan I'll need 3 days to prepare and the strongest tree you have."

"What of the other way?" the woman asked eagerly, grasping for straws, _'this kid is gold!'_

"The other way is that I use my chakra to poison him. My chakra is incredibly dense." He demonstrated by wrapping Choujuro up in his green chakra, careful not to poison him, and lifted him around the room making it look like he was flying. He then dropped the boy gently and turned to a spare chair and shot a string from his thumb at it, the string latched onto it and a few seconds later the furniture melted into a pile of goop on the ground. He looked back at his awed crowd, "but I'm not sure how that would work on a jinchuriki. So I'll recommend using my first plan."

"Yes, that does seem like the smart thing to do" Mei agreed, "we use your first plan then if that fails, we'll us the second. Hopefully the man would be weakened."

Then the masked boy clapped his hands "now onto negotiations. Lets write it down to make it official." The woman snapped her fingers and Ao produced a piece of paper and a pen (I totally forgot what they use for writing. Pardon me.). "First, when we win the war, I want everyone to know _Kumo_ not Naruto helped take down the Mizukage. My true identity would not be revealed until I reach jounin." Ao wrote this down.

"Wait, your not yet a ninja?" Choujuro asked.

Naruto shook his head "not yet, I'll become a genin in 8 months time. But, I've been told I'm already jounin material."

"And your father doesn't know about this?" Mei asked. Naruto shook his head again, "how come?"

"I left a clone in my place until I come back, he won't notice my absence. Back on topic, my second demand is that I wish to make this place would be a contact point in case the any spy of mine wouldn't be able to reach me in Konoha. You guys can always send me cryptic message, then I'll be on my way over." They nodded, agreeing, and Ao wrote it down. "third is that I want you guys to put Kumo in the bingo books, not as a wanted criminal but as a sort of bounty hunter slash suicide taking mission shinobi. This also connects to my first demand. If any nation sends for my prescience for a mission, Kiri would be where they would find out my location."

"That is agreeable, but why bingo books?" the woman in the group asked. "And why S-rank missions?"

"Apparently I inherited my mothers love for dangerous situations; I need a way to sate that love." He answered straight faced like it was common knowledge.

"Any more demands?"

"Yes, three more actually: If any of your ninja says that they want to become my spy, let them. You reserve your high mortality risk missions and its pays for Kumo-me. Lastly, I want a sort of I owe you."

"An I owe you?"

"Yes, like I can cash it in anytime and request for something."

"We can arrange for that if what you requested was not detrimental to internal security. When do you wish for us to sign this?"

"Now, if you don't mind. Ao and Choujuro should sign as well as witnesses. I'll keep the original and give you the copy later."

"Agreeable. Let's shake on it, Naruto-kun."

And with that, they sealed the deal.

 **Three days later**

We now find our hero in an open field sitting down with his legs crossed while Mei Terumi stood calmly, Ao paced behind her and Choujuro stood beside Mei.

"Ao-kun, stay in one place or I'll kill you" the woman said sweetly, and then she turned to Naruto "what are we waiting for exactly, Naruto-kun?"

"I sent the Mizukage a message, I'm waiting for his reply" as if on cue, the Kage tower exploded in a shower of glorious shrapnel. Then a monstrous roar was heard. "Seems he got it."

"What did you do?" the poor blue haired boy quivered.

"the security in his tower is terribly poor, seems like not everyone likes him, so I riddled the place in exploding tags and when he sits down on his chair, it blows up-which it has-the Mizukage would find an unsealed letter on his chair telling him where to find me."

"That was incredibly stupid, Naruto-kun" Mei glared at the boy.

"I had no other idea on how to lure him out." He shrugged airily.

"And it worked, brat." A voice snarled from behind them. Ao and Choujuro took stances in front of Mei, Mei turned her glare to the cause of the war and Naruto stood up and unsealed **wraps** and his newest puppet, **Chousensha** (tank) or **Chou** (I know, I know, terrible name but I've got nothing. Think Burami from the Suna chunin exams). "I am not here for you, girl" he pointed at Naruto who was now in a defensive position with a cackling wraps in front of him and a grinning tank behind him, "I'm here for _him_."

"Mei-sama, Ao-san, Choujuro-san stay out of this" when he saw that they wanted to argue, he smiled "trust me." Ao still wanted to argue, but Mei sent him a wordless sickly sweet smile that instantly shut him up. They got out of the way and went far to the side, "shall we, Mizukage-sama?"

"You're four decades too young to match me in battle, brat" the man sneered. He was not too tall and he had a scar going down his face through his right eye. If Naruto didn't know any better, he would think the man was Choujuro's age. "Give up now and I shall give you a swift and relatively painless death."

"I do not wish to die today and you would do well not to underestimate me," Naruto said as he manipulated wraps to bring out his obsidian scythe and take his own stance.

"Tch, you're out of your league kid. But you asked for it."

With those last words, he pulled out his hook staff and ran over to Naruto who sent over wraps to intercept.

What followed was the most epic clash in the Kiri's history.

Yagura, the Mizukage, went for a swipe to the head and the puppet ducked and used the base of his weapon to push the man back then it swiped at his arms and legs, leaving black afterimages of his scythe. The older man blocked all the swipes and gave a kick to the still cackling puppet, it connected and pushed the puppet back where it did an aerial summersault and landed on his legs. The ground under the scythe broke apart in contact. It raced back to the man and feinted a swipe to the right leg but used the momentum of the swipe to give a devastating heel kick to the mans left temple.

The Mizukage rolled aside in the nick of time and had to re-think his earlier assessment of the child. Before he could finish his thoughts a giant rolling ball crashed into him and launched him several feet away crashing into the ground in a cloud of dust.

To the side lines, the three watched the match impressed that the child got in a good tag. He was going places in the future if he survived the fight.

When the cloud of dust settled, the man stood up slowly and cracked his jaw. He then flashed through some seals, but before he could finish he had to dodge a kick from his back and jump aside when the ball crashed down on his former position.

' _This fight is harder than I thought. I have to finish this quickly'_ the man thought.

But Naruto had no intention on letting him finish the match quickly in the Mizukage's favour. So when he saw the man flash through the seals again he had wraps throw his weapon at him.

Yagura had to cut the seal chain _again_ and deflect the thrown weapon with his hook staff. The scythe flew away but was caught by a chakra string and thrown back to the cackling mummy.

The Mizukage remembered a fight he had with puppeteer when he went to Suna with his sensei. He had and remembered that his sensei advised him to take out the master first. With that quick thought he rocketed to Naruto, faster than the boy had ever seen before, and sent an unforgivable kick to his neck and watched in dark satisfied as he crumbled to the ground dead. He breathed heavily and turned his head towards the now horrified spectators. He chuckled quietly to himself and was about to attack when the dead 'Naruto' exploded in a shower of fire. A split second saved him as he dived for safety.

' _A clone! That means-'_ his thoughts were cut off when he was wrapped up in ridiculously sturdy bandages. In his distracted state, the real Naruto who hid in a tree a few metres away had wraps creep up to the man and wrap him up in his bandages.

The man wriggled and cursed. His weapon had been thrown away by that rolling ball that turned out to be Naruto's newest puppet, Chou. He gave up struggling and began channelling his bijou's demonic chakra. The bandages tightened and doubled in quantity when it started to burn through, it seemed that the bandages could continue doing that until the man himself got tired but that did not happen because the grinning Chou lugged over and hauled the Mizukage up by his shoulders, opened his mouth and then proceeded to suck out the mans and his bijou's chakra out through his eyes, nose and mouth (he did not kiss him. More like how dementors in Harry potter kissed Sirius black). As he sucked not tired and not growing, the only change in the puppets body was the soft blue glow in its belly. Every second that the chakra left his body, he grew paler and paler until he just gave up and stopped channelling the chakra. To ensure that the man had no hidden intention of a surprise attack, Chou surprised the audience when he started compressing the collected bijou chakra and blasted the poor Mizukage in the face.

When the explosion finally settled down, Naruto came out of the tree he hid in a few metres away and had Chou set the mutilated but still breathing man on the ground. He had the mummy re-wrap him up tightly and then allowed the full gravity of the situation to settle on him.

His plan worked.

The era of the 'bloody mist' has ended.

Naruto took a sigh of relief and allowed himself to feel the fear he suppressed as he fought the Kage. He shivered slightly as he looked down at the tied up former Kage. He shivered again until he felt arms wrap around him. He looked up at the smiling face of the new Mizukage. The last time he allowed a person to hug him was when he was four. He allowed himself to relax in her arms and watch amused as the normally shy Choujuro did a happy dance with Ao.

It felt nice.

 **The next day**

It was announced nation-wide that the war has ended and the Mizukage, who they found was under a sharingan induced genjutsu-which has broken, has been 'executed' and his 'head' situated in front of the currently in construction Kage tower.

Everyone knew of the hero that ended the war, he was known as **Kumo**. He was a black haired, green pupiless eyed youth that often wore his green hooded jacket and never took off his black half face mask. It was his age everyone did not know about.

The truth about the where about of the former Mizukage was that since Naruto had released him from the genjutsu (Naruto dispelled it with his potent chakra, it was still painful) and he had no will to live he swore to follow the boys every commands. Naruto took full advantage of having a Kage level shinobi as a subordinate had had him stay in Kiri as its secret protector until he had any use for him.

We find Naruto and his escorts at the place he was picked up from.

"Thank you, Naruto-kun for all you have done for Kiri," Mei said as she and the three others bowed, "we all owe you a great debt of gratitude."

Yagura stepped forward and bowed, "I also owe you my life, Naruto-sama."

Naruto smiled and scratched the back of his head with a faint blush on his cheeks, "it was nothing, just remember our agreement."

"We will honour it." Ao said as he smiled then he froze, "wait, what of those ninja you captured?"

"They are still alive, Ao-san. They're just tied up in your former rebel base." Naruto answered as he unsealed Kumo and climbed in.

Then Choujuro asked, "Where will you be going?"

The puppet hummed in thought and hissed "I still have about 5 months left, so I'm going to find the nearest town, city or village and I'm going to start making my spy network."

"Good luck to you then, Naruto-san" Ao bowed again,

"And remember that you are always welcome in Kiri." Mei added, not fazed by the sight of the grotesque creation again.

The puppet let out a small smile and waved before it disappeared into the trees on its way to the nearest village. Naruto checked the map and read out: **kaizen village** (OC).

 **Authors Note**

 **Kumo also means** **spider.** **So please take note not to confuse it with the hidden village kumoagakure. The puppet is more for quick, easy and safe transport so it will only fight if it has no other option.**

 **Sorry if Yagura seems OOC, I'm not too good with conversations.**

 **Spent a whole day doing this, I tried to make the fight scene as realistic as possible.**

 **Next chapter hopefully would be as awesome as I thought this one was.**

 **I'd like to hear your opinion of this chapter, any improvements, correction, heck even my writing style. So please REVIEW!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Last time on: Greatness**

… It was announced nation-wide that the war has ended and the Mizukage, who they found was under a sharingan induced genjutsu-which has broken, has been 'executed' and his 'head' situated in front of the currently in construction Kage tower.

Everyone knew of the hero that ended the war, he was known as **Kumo**. He was a black haired, green pupiless eyed youth that often wore his green hooded jacket and never took off his black half face mask. It was his age everyone did not know about.

…

"Thank you, Naruto-kun for all you have done for Kiri," Mei said as she and the three others bowed, "we all owe you a great debt of gratitude."

Yagura stepped forward and bowed, "I also owe you my life, Naruto-sama."

Naruto smiled and scratched the back of his head with a faint blush on his cheeks, "it was nothing, just remember our agreement."

…

Naruto checked the map and read out: **kaizen village** (OC).

 **Now…**

CHAPTER 5

Walking leisurely to kaizen village, Naruto whistled a tune he heard from his surrogate grandfather. He had sealed Kumo in his wrist so that the members of the village would not feel threatened or be afraid of him.

It was sunset when he reached the villages gates and crept past the sleeping gate keeper. The man looked _old_. Kaizen village was located on the edge of grass country. It was a market based village with less than 5% of its population being ninja. He chose this place because of the tendency for news being passed between merchants.

He smiled and waved to a farmer who had a hoe over his shoulders and his son who tried to match his old mans steps. It was a nice thing seeing the innocence of a child trying to show that he was grown up to his father. This greatly depressed our hero; for longer than he could remember he had been trying to catch his old mans eyes, trying to get the man to look at him instead of his sister. He gave up the moment he lost his clan heir title.

Naruto knew that he lost his innocence the day he made his first puppet: Kumo. That was the day he swore to show his family that he was not a weakling.

' _Just you wait, Tou-sama. When I make jounin you'll see how far I have already gone without your help. I'll sho-'_ his dark thoughts were interrupted by a soft yelp in a dark ally. He briefly noted that it was already dark now, about seven 'o clock. He heard the yelp again but this time it was accompanied by pained sobs and incoherent pleading. He heard a man yell at it then a crunching sound that could only mean he had kicked her.

"Murderer! Why don't you just die!" the man spat as Naruto crept stealthily towards the voices.

"I didn't kill anyone, sir. Please stop." A voice replied, obviously female and painfully obvious that she was young.

"You killed my sister, freak!" another voice trilled, this one was female, accompanied by a slapping sound and more whimpering, "stop trying to act all innocent, beast!"

Naruto looked into the corner and his blood ran cold at the sight.

Four obviously adult figures towered over a small shivering pile of clothes on the ground. It was blood stained.

"Nobody wants you, beast! Die like the filth you are!" one of the silent figures, male, yelled stomping on the pile on the ground.

"Hey guys, look what I found!" the fourth figure shouted as he hoisted up a long steel pipe. Naruto could guess what he wanted to do with it, he won't allow them.

"Hey!" the blonde yelled, "what do you think your doing!"

"Piss off kid; this is adult business, go back home." The female figure said sneered at him. When Naruto walked into the ally she yelled at him "Oi! I said piss off!"

"I'll handle this yuo" the first figure muttered loudly, he marched towards Naruto, obviously with ill intention towards the boy. Little did he know, so did Naruto. Before he reached five feet to the boy a thin green string grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up. It wasn't tight enough to suffocate him.

Naruto kept walking and he quickly unsealed Kumo and had it stand at the entrance of the ally in case one of the fools tried to escape. He walked up to the small bundle and saw shy eyes watch him come. When he got closer he had three more of his chakra strings tie up the rest of the bullies. When he got to the bundle he saw it lying in front of a large cardboard box and assumed that that was where it normally slept. He knelt down in from of the bundle and gave it a small smile which it didn't see from behind his mask.

"Hey there," he whispered, "what's your name?"

The pile of clothe seemed to hesitate then it replied, "Don't got one. The woman in the orphanage says monsters don't deserve to have names."

"Let me be the judge of that. Can I please see your face?" the pile hesitated and quivered slightly as if it was remembering a past event. Naruto removed his own mask, "please."

It seemed to nod and it slowly stood up, it was definitely younger and shorter than him, and it unravelled the clothes on its face. When it finished it-now a she-looked Naruto in the eyes before she ducked into the box and looked up at him.

She had short grey hair with heavy side burns. Her eyes were cat-like with blood red sclera; she had small fangs in her mouth and small sharp nails on her fingers and feet. She was slightly tanned and had any normal 5 year olds face-disregarding the side burns and the ears which looked elf-like, that is. She had a little hair on the upper part of her hand and on her feet (think wolverine's side burns but not his hair and _definitely_ not his beard). (Who can guess what she is!)

"I don't see a monster, do you want to know what I see?" she nodded timidly, "I see a person in need of a friend. Would you let me be your friend?"

It froze and quivered, and then it took a deep breath and murmured, "Promise not to hurt me."

"I swear on my life I would never hurt you intentionally." Naruto beamed at her, "since you don have a name, can I give you one?" she nodded and raised her head above the box's edge, "I'll call you Shin yu because you will be my best friend." The girl, now named Shin yu leapt out of the box and hugged him. He patted her back and smiled, "my name is Naruto."

"Thank you Naruto-sama." She whispered.

"No, no, no don't call me that. Naruto is fine"

"Na-naruto-san?" she said, testing the name and looking at him for confirmation. He shrugged then nodded, "Naruto-san."

"That's good shin-chan," she blushed heavily at the name. "Can you get down for a minute; I need to deal with these trash." He said as he sneered at the still struggling figures suspended above them.

Shin yu was wide eyed with awe at what her new best friend could do, "how do you do that?" she said as she reluctantly got down from the warm boys embrace.

"I'll show you later if you want."

"I'd like that very much, Naruto-san."

He nodded, "now close your eyes, cover your ears and count to thirty… you do know how to count right?"

"I-I-I taught myself how to do it. I don't know if I'm correct though." She muttered while she scuffed her feet on the floor.

"I can correct you if you're wrong whenever you like, that's one of the things best friends do for each other."

"Will you run away like the last one?" She said sourly.

He ruffled her hair and said "trust me, shin-chan, I will never run away."

"Ok, Naruto-san." She closed her eyes and covered her ears, "one, two, three…" she opened an eye and peaked at him, then quickly closed it when he saw her.

"Four"

"Four, five…"she continued.

When she got to twelve he turned around and lowered the four figures. "Let me show you what I do to someone I dislike." back in Konoha his parents shuddered, feeling glad that they were alive.

That night, residents of Kaizen heard the blood curdling screams of those unfortunate souls. They did nothing as they were to afraid to step out at night, while this was going on, the newly named Shin yu merrily counted on like there was nothing in the world that could bring her down. The next day, the four victims were found hanging by their under wear on the villages monument of the villages founder, Kaizen, pointing finger. It was a monument posed with him leaning on his right leg and him pointing with his left hand to the sky. Somehow their under wear all fit the finger and their faces forever etched in horror at a sight only they could see.

Naruto found out that day, as he held Shin yu's clawed hand on their way to a clothes shop that he had to place a henge on the girl before she could enter a shop.

 _Shin yu_ had to physically restrain him from pouncing on a foolish clothe trader that had snarled at her.

Presently, we find our hero burning Shin's former cloths-which were just rags sewn together to form a tattered shirt. She now wore a plain black shirt, bright red apron skirt with black shorts underneath, dark blue sandals and a black beanie on her head to try and cover her hair and dark goggles to hide her eyes. She finally had on black hand gloves to cover her clawed hands. Naruto had also given her one of his half face mask as a sign of mutual trust; even though it didn't fit her she still wore it around her neck.

He told her the reason he was in the village and said that he planned on staying for at least 2 months. She did not like the idea of staying in the village very much but she still agreed.

In kaizen village, there were 6 bars and 2 brothels. They were the information nerve centre of the village. So Naruto spent a whole week convincing the bar and brothel owners as well as their occupants to take note of any useful information they come by and, depending on its usefulness, he would pay them. He needed to establish trust he set down 5,000 ryo in each bar and brothel he visited that agreed to be his informants. All the while, Shin held onto Naruto's hand firmly as if any moment she would wake up and he wouldn't be there. She was awed on how easily he made the villagers eat out of the palm of his hands with just a few words. Next up, he went about befriending all the street kids he could find, whether they were normal or 'freaks'. He purchased an apartment building in the far corner of Kaizen, furnished it and had all the street kids move in where they were be clothed and fed.

You may ask yourself if his money supply ever finished. When your parents ignore you for four years you would develop a self consciousness that would drive you to appreciate what you have, not waste anything and develop skills not even necessary at his age. Plus, the fact that he could always go to the Sandaime Hokage, the clan heads of the Aburame and the Hyuuga whenever he 'needed' the money could also be factored out. He had _a lot_ of money.

98% of them developed a sense of gratitude towards him and they would do anything he would ask because he gave them a place to stay, eat and clothes to wear. It was more of a life debt thing. Naruto carefully trained them, including Shin yu, on the art of subtlety and information gathering straight from a book he got as a late birthday gift from good old Sami Yamanaka. He told them early on what he wanted them to do.

"I want you to be my spies. I want you guys to go to as many nations and hidden villages as possible-besides Konoha, because I will soon have that place covered-and gather sensitive and dangerous information. I will want you to grow up there, gain their trust and if possible gain high positions in their political and militaristic hierarchy and report any sort of important and sensitive information you can get your hands on back to me. Are you willing to do this for me? Are you willing to risk your lives for me?"

They _all_ agreed. Every single one of them, even the ones that didn't develop a sense of gratitude.

In total they were 37 and growing. They were between the ages of 5 and 15 years old, and they all swore their loyalty to him alone; _because he gave them a reason to live._

He made fire clones and split their training between them. One clone would teach some sign language and how to speak in cryptic messages only they would understand. Another taught general knowledge on the countries he knew of. Another taught physical exercise and pain endurance, another taught chakra manipulations (the basic three and chakra exercises), they would have to learn the jutsu indigenous to the nation they would be staying in, another taught how to sneak around stealthily and even suppressing chakra to the barest minimum, the last taught them acting (for obvious reasons). They would switch clones after a 3 hour lesson. It was all coming together well. When he thought that they were ready he had them group together and sneak around town for even the tiniest bit of information and writing it down for him to read, he awarded points on the how hard it was for him to decipher it. He also had them steal from shops, the higher the security and the tendency for them to notice the theft, the higher the points given.

The only foreseeable problem that they had was on how they would communicate between themselves, but his devilish luck pulled through when he found a 12 year old who could speak to any kind of bird and have it deliver messages. He told him to paint their left toes green so they can identify them.

After the 2 months he drew a small spider-like seal on their wrists. They were now 53 in number so he had to buy another apartment building near the original one. They would need about 2 more months before those older than 9 were ready, but he had no time to spare so he made a fire clone and pumped it with half of his chakra.

"You stay for as long as possible. I'll need regular correspondence so have Tori-kun send a bird with a message once a week. Lastly, after 2 months have the 9 - 15 year old kids randomly choose an elemental nation or village besides Rain, I'll check that place out myself. By the time you need to dispel, the last of the students have already chosen an elemental nation or village. Sell the apartments then and give it to the last of them. Am I clear?"

The clone saluted, "yes, boss!"

Naruto rolled his eyes and made to leave until a weight settled on his back. He sighed quietly. _'Shin-chan.'_

"Shin-chan-"

She cut him off, "I'm going with you."

"Shin-chan-"

"You said best friends are basically family and-and you're my first friend, so I'm going with you."

"Shin-chan-"

"I know I almost messed up last month but-but you also said best friends correct each others mistakes."

"Shin-chan-"

"What am I going to do without you, Naruto?" She heard him laugh quietly, "hey! This isn't funny, poop tart!"

"I was going to ask if you've packed," he laughed again at her silence, then her groan "have you?"

"Yup" she chirped, and then _somehow_ the weight on his back increased. "Now let's go!"

"Not yet, I need to address the other kids, go around and call the other kids over for an announcement." He said and sighed when the weight on his back lessened. He always wondered how the girl managed to sneak up on him-he was sure he inherited a sort of super hearing from his ex-jinchuriki mother-but the girl always managed to out-class _him_ in stealth; in every other class she was a bit above average.

He walked outside and waited in front of the main apartment building with his hands behind his back. He remembered that Shin brought up what happened last month that almost destroyed his goal in the town.

 _Flashback_

On that day was a full moon.

When Naruto found the little girl in the forest on one of those days that he wouldn't be able to sleep. She lay on the ground in a foetal position and shivered every few seconds.

"Shin-chan?" she stood up abruptly and looked at him wide eyed, backing away slowly "what's wrong?"

She kept backing away slowly, "Naruto-san, please you can't be here. You'll get hurt a-and it would be all my fault and-"

He cut-off her rambling by closing the distance silently and hugging her, occasionally stroking her back, "remember, Shin-chan, best friends tell each other everything."

The 5 year old gripped his shirt tightly and sobbed into his chest, "you don't want to know! I'm a freak!" he shushed her and kept stroking her back "please Naruto-san, I-I don't want you to get hurt."

"What would hurt me? Pushing me away and keeping secrets is hurting me, Shin-chan."

Her eyes widened dramatically and her grip on his shirt increased, "every full moon I-I-I feel this urge. Something telling me that it was ok for me to wash myself in all their blood. I turn into this beast!" she yelled into his shirt then she tried pushing him away "go, Naruto-san, I-I can feel it! Please you have to go!"

Hearing what she said had just confirmed his suspicions and the rumours he heard from some of the villagers. She was a werewolf.

"Do you want to hurt me?" she tried to unlatch herself from the hug but he held her tightly. "If you don't want to hurt me, don't. Fight it Shin-chan." He heard her growl and the hands at his sides sharpened and tore his shirt. She kept struggling and a feral growl ripped through her. She struggled again as the hair around her face and body doubled. She growled and restrained her feral urges from biting into his stomach. All the while the boy calmly stroked her back and murmured "your strong, Shin-chan."

The boy had to harden his skin with a light layer of chakra so that her claws wouldn't pierce him and he won't burn her. She suddenly kneed his crotch and used his lack of concentration to separate herself. He squealed and knelt down, holding his hurting organ; trying to ignore the pain he stood up and looked at her.

Shin was clutching her head and snarling loudly, the fur on her body thickening and thinning spontaneously. She tried tearing out the hair on her head and fell on her knees. Her hair covering her back and her legs shifting to something more dog-like with a _crack_ and the claws on her hands lengthening. Suddenly her head snapped up to the moon still shining down into the clearing.

 _Howl!_

Naruto took a step backwards when the former child's head turned towards him slowly and bared her now fully fanged, mouth in a snarl. The formerly small girl now stood at 5'9 feet with a full body coating of grey fur. She hulked slowly towards him.

"Who is in control?! You or it?!" (Naive huh?).

"*growl* go 'ruto-san. Go!" it still growled as it lugged to him. Shin finally lost control and the werewolf lunged at the blonde who rolled out of the way. He sighed to himself tiredly then his face turned stony and from his sleeve he shot out a senbon needle coated with a heavy tranquilizer to her head, but she dodged it and leapt to him again, he formed an arm made out of his chakra strings around his left arm and caught her in the air and slammed her to the ground with an almost deafening boom.

She struggled and huffed at the appendage holding her down and looked at Naruto, who was still very much stony faced, and pleaded with her eyes at him, whimpering and moaning deceptively. He could still see the feral blood lust and murder in her eyes. Closing his eyes he contemplated putting her down for good but shot that idea down, _'she is my best friend.'_ He thought solemnly.

He mentally looked for anyway to cure her even if it was momentarily, ignoring her quiet whimpers and apologetic eyes. She abandoned the idea and chose instead to scratch and claw at the chakra string made arm but it neither tore nor weakened. He sighed again and aimed at her with his senbon launcher and shot her with another tranquilizer senbon. She slumped a few minutes later occasionally twitching. He sat cross legged in front of her, stroking her fur covered hand and wondered if there would ever be a cure for her affliction.

' _Maybe I should try wolf's bane or slivers of silver in a pill or maybe that myth that music calms them down. There has to be something I can do.'_ He thought and kept stroking her hand until sunrise when the werewolf reduced in size until it was as small as the little girl he remembered. She was curled up in a ball, shaking in her now tattered shirt and pants.

"Don't worry, Shin-chan, I'll find a cure. I promise." He muttered to the cursed child.

 _Flashback end_

In his studies on how to reverse the curse somehow, he found out that the violin could calm the werewolf down and put it to sleep, after an hour that is.

Slowly, the front yard began filling with his students and a few of his lesson clones stayed on the sides to hear what their 'boss' had to say. When the students saw him they all began murmuring but Naruto's raised hand and ordered them non-verbally to keep quiet-which they did. They all wordlessly entered lines according to their ages, with the line for 15 year olds being the longest followed by the 7 year olds. He nodded to himself when there was absolute silence before he spoke:

"Today is the time limit I have set for myself before I have to travel around. So, before I go, is there anybody here that wishes not to continue training? You will still be welcome to stay in this house for as long as you want for free." After the question he was met with eyes of fiery determination and he slightly smirked. "You will all be going to your missions in the next few months, prepare yourselves. When you get to your chosen country send messenger birds to Tori-kun." He looked at the boy and said "send the names and the country or village to me 2 months after you've gotten them to me in Konoha. Understood?" The boy smiled brightly and nodded, Naruto looked back at the assembly "everyone take not of where this guy would be posted. You will all send bi-annual updates to me through Tori on anything of significance. Remember this, my students, that even the tiniest bit of information may save a life or a whole village." He paused and cleaned up the tears that were welling up in his eyes and straightened up "know that I am proud of each and every one of you and I know that you won't disappoint me. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to teach you" he bowed to the quiet yard, when he straightened up. He was sure that he was not manipulating them because they always had a choice.

Then a senior student, Aoi, took a step forward and bowed, "no, sensei, thank _you_ for giving us someone to look up to and a reason to make you proud." As one all his students bowed to him and muttered their thanks.

They all knew what they were doing was dangerous and very illegal, but if it benefited their saviour, their sensei in anyway possible then they would gladly do it.

' _For Naruto-sensei!'_

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

In Konoha, we find 'Naruto' going through the hand seals for the fourth donton technique his ji-sama gave him: **Earth Technique: Stone Spears**. 'Naruto' ended the chain and yelled out the name of the jutsu. Suddenly the ground him front of him shot out spear after spear away from him to a tree 50 feet from him, it impaled the tree numerously in the bulls eye he carved out. True his 'boss' may never make us of this technique because of the multiple functions his chakra strings could serve, but it never hurts for him to know it in case he would want to teach it someone.

That had been a dream of his 'boss' since he had started learning puppetry. To pass on his knowledge of his art to willing students, to give them knowledge his parents unintentionally forced him to learn. He had a small feeling that his 'boss' was some how accomplishing part of the goal right now.

With that fiery thought/goal in his mind he went through the chain again but this time he split it in half and the spears shot out again and thunked onto the sturdy tree. He nodded in satisfaction and chose that moment to start practising with his chosen weapon: a scythe. It wasn't the same obsidian scythe that the real Naruto had with him but more of a basic scythe with a brown wooden handle and a steel blade. It was very much lighter than the real weapon but it still served the same purpose of learning the motions so that he also could use it, not only wraps.

 _Swish, slash, swish, swipe, slash, hack._

He went through the kata of his **Dizzy Spell Stinging Fist** but also incorporated it with the weapon. He spun the blade in his hands and the usual after images diverged and converged making one think that the was a spiral pupil glowing green eye that turned anti-clockwise slowly, then quick as a flash he slashed at thin air and huffed quietly. _'Too slow.'_ He spun the weapon over head and bent his knees slightly, and then he lunged and slashed again. _'Better. Now for the last.'_ He spun the blade behind him but this time he waited five more minutes and tried to slash but the blade slipped out of his hand and clattered to the floor. He looked at the blade frustrated, unaware of the secret audience he had.

'Naruto' looked up at the sky and did a double take when he saw the stars twinkling down at him. _'Time to head back home, I guess.'_

He made to pick up the fallen weapon but had to donkey kick a figure and roll forward, grasping his scythe, and taking a his stance, glaring at the silhouette of the person that wanted to knock him out rubbing his chin and cracking it back in place.

He could not see his face ('Naruto' assumed it was a 'he' because he was hulkish and had terrible posture, more like a hunch back) but he looked as if he was covered in shadowy tendrils that swayed in the non-existent breeze.

"Man, that kick hurt!" his voice rumbled as he still rubbed his chin, then he mumbled not too quietly "and I thought I knew everything about you."

' _A stalker? But that's not Hinata!'_ the stoic faced clone panicked mentally. "Who are you?" he commanded.

"Me? I'm the queen's emissary" he bowed (if that's even possible) "and before you ask, she wishes to meet you."

"I'm not going anywhere. You tried to knock me out!" the boy shouted at him.

"Fine. She will meet you." The man rumbled before it went into a chain of seals before 'Naruto' could attack, " **summoning technique!** "

Smoke billowed from the man's shadowy body and he hunched over and collapsed.

The smoke reached high into the sky, far taller than the Hokage's tower before it shrunk down to that of an average mans height. The smoke cleared and 'Naruto' gulped.

In his place stood a woman in a shadowy dress with tendrils rolling of it in waves, acting like it was both attracted and repulsed by her. It was shaped into a dress that hugged all the right places (in 'Naruto's' unbiased opinion). She had long midnight black hair that reached her neck and she was very pale with a heart shaped face. She had on a crown that 'Naruto' assumed only kings should wear, studded in gems and intricately designed to still fit her beautifully. The woman's formerly closed eyes opened and what he saw made him step back in fright. She had 4 deep crimson eyes that held so much power and that pierced him (figuratively) so deep he felt like all the oxygen was being sucked from his lungs and he would die (dispel) any second. He knelt down, clutching his chest, wheezing heavily. The suffocating atmosphere was destroyed by the woman coughing into her hand and closing her eyes, then she opened them again and she now had two warm crimson red eyes instead of four. 'Naruto' took in a deep breathe and wobbled back to his feet and he glared at her while getting back into his stance.

Her stoic face slowly smirked and she nodded approvingly.

She walked towards him and 'Naruto' tensed. He just knew he couldn't out run the woman, even if the dress she wore looked very restrictive. He contemplated dispelling but shook the idea out of his head, he had a mission to finish and he would just have to see what this-beautiful-woman had to say.

She stopped two feet in front of him looked at him, her smirk increased when she still saw the fire in his eyes.

"I am night's queen. I rule over all arachnids. My name is Queen Kumomara (I think this is the feminine version of 'Kumomaru'), but you" she tapped his nose daintily and smiled fully "can call me Mara." He stayed silent and his glare increased, "aren't you going to introduce yourself?" he said nothing "I mean you no harm, clone" he stiffened and she nodded "oh, yes I know. I thought H told you we have been watching you. We have, ever since your 'boss' made his first puppet. I am greatly impressed." The woman sighed silently at his defiance.

"What do you want with 'boss'?" the clone said stoically.

"I wish for him to be our summoner," she raised her right hand slowly so as not to alarm him and a scroll as big as the toad summoning scroll appeared in her hand. She held it like it weighed nothing and handed it to the clone who took it reluctantly. When she released hold of the scroll he slumped down and had to summon some strings to hold it for him. She nodded approvingly again. "Your 'boss' will be our very first summoner."

He unravelled the scroll and noticed that it had no other name on it; he looked at her and raised an eyebrow, "what makes 'boss' so special?"

"I just said that I am greatly impressed" she answered him immediately.

"How has he impressed you?"

"plenty of ways" she snapped her fingers and a throne made of writhing spiders crawled out of a nearby bush, another chair came out behind it and Mara sat down on the chair and motioned for him to sit also. He eyed the chair suspiciously but still sat down. "He chose to teach himself even though his parents didn't, he chose to prove to his parents he was also talented instead of whining about it, he is a good planner, _you_ mastered 3 earth techniques in a month and a half, _you_ managed to learn a jutsu from the rest of the elemental affinities the rest of the month, he has good fashion sense, he is polite and he is most importantly quiet and resourceful. That is what I look for in a summoner." She motioned to the scroll and paused for a second, blinked and said in a rush, "When he returns, give it to him to sign if he wishes to. The hand seals are already on it. Tell him to summon me when he can so we can speak. Good bye." And with a less dramatic puff of smoke, she and the spiders disappeared and he fell plop on his bum.

He had no reaction, he just stared intently at the summoning contract being held by his strings and then he opened it again and read aloud: **Arachnid Summoning Contract** , written in neat cursive hand writing.

"'boss' is gonna love this."

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

Our blonde hero had about 3 months left before he would have to go back to Konoha. Plenty of time to make one more stop before he could head into Ame.

He felt a shiver go up his spin as he entered into the next town, then another shiver. On his back, Shin looked at him curiously, "are you ok, Naruto-san?"

He squared his shoulders and kept his face neutral. "I feel as if someone is talking about me _somewhere_ and at the same time this town is too…"

"Quiet…" she whispered,

"Well creepier than a quiet town-"

"Naruto-san keep quiet. I hear something."

True to her word they heard multiple foot steps running behind a building. Now that he looked at the buildings he was less than impressed. The buildings were dilapidated and un-maintained, their paint was peeling, the trash at the side of the houses stank of dead rats and he could see what he assumed was the body of a mutated cat.

He heard more foot steps behind him and Shin hugged him tighter, he raised his hand and stroked her head that was hiding in the crook of his neck. He slowly kept walking and tried to remember the name of the town. It was meant to be an advanced transport hub that transported vegetables towards Suna. They first used trains to take it as close to the desert as possible then they give the produce to the trading caravans (middle men) who carried it to Suna. He marked this place down on the map because, like in Kaizen village, there had to be some traders and transporters that told stories about their travels that carried the smallest bit of truth. Most likely the book he read about the town from was very out dated. His skin crawled in the silence.

He hated looking like the prey. He hated feeling or being under someone's mercy. He _hated_ it.

He flared his chakra, taking care not to burn the child on his back and unsealed his most current puppet. During his stay in Kaizen village, he was hardly idle. When his clones took charge of teaching the street kids, he the idea from the behaviour of one of the 'reject' street kids. The circumstances he found him in were similar to Shin yu. Apparently, Kaizen was where Orochimaru of the Sannin would dump some of his experiments if that were too un-cooperative and too un-containable or when they did not yield his desired result. The child knew that it was kidnapped by Orochimaru because he was 7 years old when he was taken from an orphanage in Konoha. He found the boy in the forest on the day he was abandoned eating a whole deer. Naturally, he didn't trust the blonde but after hearing that there were people similar to him he grasped for the straws. For some unknown reason he did not remember his name so Naruto named him Aoi.

The python puppet he unsealed hissed dangerously. It was so wide that it scraped the sides of the neighbourhood houses, Naruto stood on its head with his hood up, looking down menacingly at the town.

"Come out!" he shouted.

It was silent for a few minutes until the streets started filling with people, _normal_ people. It seemed that the stream of people was unending but it still ended with an old man hobbling from his hideout behind a dumpster. Naruto's eyebrows furrowed at that but nobody could see it because of the shadow his hood cast.

"Hero?" a voice squeaked. He looked down and saw a boy a few years older than himself pointing at him, "hero?" he said louder and the people began muttering among themselves. The child was now frantically pointing at him looking as if he had won a house of candy, "HERO!"

At this the crowd cheered uproariously, some even threw up their hats and hooted, chanting "hero! Hero!"

The blonde looked over his shoulders at Shin who shrugged.

"Hello!? Hero, we need your help. Please!" the same boy yelled up at him, still pointing at him. (Rude huh?)

Naruto sighed and pinched his nose, _'what have I gotten myself into.'_

 **Authors Note**

 **Shin yu – Best Friend**

 **Oh, oh, oh progress eh?!**

 **Naruto is an adrenaline junky even if he does not seem like it.**

 **How do you guys like my OC's. How many of you guessed what Shin yu was? For you guys who got it… FRUIT CAKE FOR YOU!**

 **Opinions whether positive or negative are welcome. So… REVIEW!**

 **B.j.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Last time on: Greatness**

… The python puppet he unsealed hissed dangerously. It was so wide that it scraped the sides of the neighbourhood houses, Naruto stood on its head with his hood up, looking down menacingly at the town.

"Come out!" he shouted.

It was silent for a few minutes until the streets started filling with people, _normal_ people. It seemed that the stream of people was unending but it still ended with an old man hobbling from his hideout behind a dumpster. Naruto's eyebrows furrowed at that but nobody could see it because of the shadow his hood cast.

"Hero?" a voice squeaked. He looked down and saw a boy a few years older than himself pointing at him, "hero?" he said louder and the people began muttering among themselves. The child was now frantically pointing at him looking as if he had won a house of candy, "HERO!"

At this the crowd cheered uproariously, some even threw up their hats and hooted, chanting "hero! Hero!"

The blonde looked over his shoulders at Shin who shrugged.

"Hello!? Hero, we need your help. Please!" the same boy yelled up at him, still pointing at him. (Rude huh?)

Naruto sighed and pinched his nose, _'what have I gotten myself into.'_

 **Now…**

CHAPTER 6

Our blonde hero's shoulders slumped, _'why am I doing this again?'_ he asked himself as he stood in front of the now named rice towns abandoned train tunnel. It was a huge hole in the side of a mountain that reached past Konoha to Suna; its edges were decorated with solid sand stones that now cracked in places. It could fit two of his python puppets well enough because the tunnel was built to be able to accommodate 6 trains. The town had two more of these tunnels all of which were similar to each other. _'Oh yeah, our agreement.'_

 _Flashback_

"I'm sorry but I'm not a hero." Naruto said from on to of python and the noise quieted down quickly. "I'm afraid you've got the wrong person."

"What! No, you are a hero. You have your own monster!" a random person yelled.

Naruto clenched his fists as Shin tightened her already tight grip on him. He had python lower its head to bow on the ground and he stepped down and crossed his arms with python still swaying above him with its tongue licking the air. He took a deep breathe to keep himself from lashing out and asked "which monster?"

They all pointed at the swaying puppet, Naruto allowed himself a smile from behind his mask and scratched Shin behind the ear. He nodded and said "I'm not a hero, I help at a price. What do you need help for and I'll name my price."

The elderly man that stepped out from behind the dumpster moved forward and bowed to the blonde boy "oh great hero!" Naruto's eyebrow twitched, "we implore you to aid us in our time of need and slay the evil dragon in the Suna bound train tunnel and we would do anything you wish."

The others followed suit and bowed to the 8 year old. Naruto looked at Shin and raised an eyebrow, she shrugged again and nodded. He turned back to the now straight backed people "wait, dragon? I'm sure whatever is terrorizing you is similar to what a dragon looks like but is not. There are no such things as dragons."

"It _is_ a dragon hero, I swear. I saw it with me own eyes" another fairly old man hobbled out from the crowd. He had a wooden leg right leg and crooked teeth, with a train conductors overall. "I was there when it killed our leader, Isami."

Naruto sighed "ok, say I believe you, what would you pay for me killing the 'dragon'?"

"Anything hero!" a feminine voice yelled from the back and the people nodded at that and looked at him expectantly.

"I want 10% of all profit this town which I would come by and collect once a month, I want a ninja school established in this place as soon as possible, don't worry I'll provide all the learning materials and I want this town to answer to only me" Naruto said and he looked at the first old man who nodded, "call me Kumo. Not the cloud but the spider"

"We agree to all your conditions, Kumo-sama" the old man bowed, "just please rid us of the dragon."

"I need it in writing and I want you," he pointed at the crippled conductor "to be the witness."

"Paper?!" the conductor yelled and a child ran forward with a notepad held above his head and a pencil in his mouth. The two elders converged with the crowd and began muttering amongst themselves. 5 minutes later the conductor hobbled to him and presented the paper which was now contained the exact detail of the agreement but with more than 10 witness signatures. "Here it is, Kumo-sama."

Naruto nodded and pocketed the agreement, "what can you tell me about this 'dragon'"

"It breathes fire! And-and it is super strong" the man answered as he waved his arms above his head.

"If you people are so afraid of that creature why haven't you re-located?"

"We are a proud people and our families have been here for generations, we can't just leave here!"

 _Flashback end_

"I need you to stay here, Shin-chan." He said and looked at the girl that was still latched on his back, "you're strong but not yet strong enough to face the 'dragon'"

"…you'll come back right?" the cursed child asked quietly.

"Of course I'll come back. Here, I'll leave a clone to keep you company." He formed the hand seals and a quick burst of fire later a second Naruto stood next to the real one. He opened his arms and Shin dived into it. "Be right back."

He summoned Chou and jumped onto pythons head, he then had the snake slip into the tunnel with the rolling puppet behind it. The dark tunnel was quiet but Naruto stayed on high alert. He had to jump off pythons head when a blurry thing barrelled into its side and kept pounding its head into the puppet. Naruto sent his tank puppet rolling into the creature to distract it while he fixed his snake puppets caved in head.

With a flick of his index finger the pythons head snapped back into place and it hissed angrily at its attacker. The puppeteer sent the puppet head first into the attacker's side as it tried to catch the rolling puppet with its tail. The python caught it head on and pushed it further down the dark tunnel, lowering visibility to nil. He was fighting in the dark. He felt Chou being hit with the creature's strong tail and being sent in his direction he jumped out of the way but was still clipped in his shoulders while the fat puppet got indented into the wall. He grits his teeth in pain and frustration. He lit up pythons glowing green eyes so that he would have even the slightest idea on whom or what he was fighting.

Turns out it was a dragon. He did not even want to know how a dragon got here.

It had a long and slender body like a snake with tiny but deceptively strong arms and legs that carried his body with ease; it had equally tiny but deceptive wings. It had a rectangular head with a mouth filled with rows and rows of sharp teeth and eyes that glowed a bright yellow. If he was to guess the colour he would say it was gold and red scaled. (Think something like a traditional Chinese dragon, I think).

It head butted his puppet into the wall and kept pounding it there until Naruto released his connection so it would look limp and the glow in its eyes died, putting the tunnel back into total darkness. Naruto cursed himself for not having any source of light handy. He concentrated all 10 fingers to his tank puppet behind him; he made it spin wildly in the wall so that he could free itself. The dragon turned towards the sound and lumbered over to Naruto, its own yellow eyes telling Naruto that the creature had spotted him. He perspired a little on his forehead and put more chakra into releasing the puppet. _'Come on, come on'_ , he chanted in his head as he backed away from the huge creature. The dragon stopped and opened his mouth, a swirl of fire charged up and it kept increasing in size, it shot the ball of fire at the puppeteer.

The fire ball could easily plough through his python puppet even if it made it on time to intercept and Naruto did not know any strong jutsu that could block it. He wanted to accept his fate but in a stroke of luck only an Uzumaki could have, his tank puppet spun out of the hole, rolled towards him, jumped up and opened up then _swallowed_ the ball of fire. Chou's belly glowed a deep red and Naruto had to pump more of his chakra into the specialized fuinjutsu in the tanks stomach so that it wouldn't explode and, just like with the former Mizukage, he compressed the ball of fire to the size of a tennis ball and shot it back at the dragon. As this was happening, the creature watched in curious silence with its head cocked to the side. The ball of fire met its left eye and it roared in outrage, swinging his tail around wildly.

Naruto breathed a sigh of relief and connected some of his strings back to python and had it frill its scales making it look like samehada but more slender and drill-like. It spun towards the disorientated creature and slammed it into the wall repeatedly. He had Chou spin over to it and join in the pummelling with it spitting out the residue fire at the things trunk. He stopped them and reverted python back to its normal form but kept Chou in his spinning tank form in case what he had in mind did not work. He had his snake wrap itself around the creature and _squeezed_. The dragon roared in outrage and made to spit out another ball of fire but was distracted by the spinning ball bashing into the side of its head. It coughed out smoke and wheezed when the snake kept squeezing; making a last ditch effort by swinging about, trying to free itself but it was loosing oxygen fast. It gave a last booming roar before the light in the dragons glowing eyes dimmed.

Naruto's legs wobbled and he fell on his knees, his chakra strings still keeping his python puppet wrapped around the mythical creature. This fight was as intense as his fight with the Mizukage. He took several deep breaths and when he thought he had a strong grip on himself he summoned 6 fire clones and had them seal up the dead creature. ' _You never know when you'll need the carcass of a mythical creature'_. He sealed his puppets himself and walked out of the tunnel to the awaiting crowd.

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

 **A month and a half later**

In an unknown location in a dimly lit tower, a man wearing a mask with a single eyehole fumed.

' _How did we lose the 3 tailed? Zetsu says that some kid killed him and won the war for Kiri, this only delays my plans but it most definitely does not halt it. When I find you, Kumo, you would wish you were never_ _ **born**_ _.'_ The mysterious man sneered to himself. He wore a black cloak with cloud designs on it.

"Are you alright, Madara Uchiha?" another man said from behind the first. This one sat on a sort of throne with numerous pipes sticking out from his back and shoulders. He was shirtless with deep red hair and purple rippled eyes. _The Rinnegan._

"I'm just thinking about the loss of the 3 tailed, Pein" the man called Madara Uchiha answered "we would have to wait 3 years before we may proceed to gathering the jinchuriki and extracting their bijou."

"A sad loss but nothing we can not adapt to" the now named Pein said, he turned to his right and looked at the woman standing by his side "a sad loss isn't it, Konan"

The woman had indigo coloured hair with a blue origami rose on her right temple. She also wore a black cloak with red clouds on it that reached past her mouth but if not for that one would be able to see her frown, "I still think this is a bad idea, Nagato." She answered monotonously, "how would collecting the bijou complete our goals." She looked at the masked man and glared lightly, "this collecting of the jinchuriki has nothing to do with our goals at all."

"If your friend keeps mouthing off, Pein, she may get in trouble." Madara mused loudly and turned around. "I have matters to attend to, tell the other members of Akatsuki that we would keep taking missions and collecting money." And with that he disappeared in a swirling vortex.

Pein, still looking at Konan, spoke "if you are not for our cause then leave, you may come back when you realize that this is the only way."

She looked back at him with here stoic face still in place and said, "Why can't you see that that man is using you."

"He can not use a god, Konan" he snapped, loosing his cool "we have spoken about this before so do not force my hand to do something I will not regret. Now, go and attend to your duties to Ameagakure."

She nodded and made to go out but stopped at the door and looked back at Pein, "Yahiko did not want us to attain world peace like this, Nagato."

The temperature in the room dropped and Konan could see fire in the mans eyes from across the room, "this is exactly what he would want. Leave!"

She stood firmly at the entrance of the room, "he would be greatly disappointed in what you are doing. Please see that that man is using you." Konan said coolly.

With those words, Pein _snapped_.

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

It took less time than he anticipated restarting the now newly named Trains town. They had to fix all the houses and the trains, and then begin rebuilding those that collapsed when the dragon attacked them a month ago.

When those people put their minds on something they put 100% into it.

As the ninja academy was being built, Naruto had his fire clones teach those who were willing the more militaristic aspect of being a ninja. He did not want more spies and informants, he wanted a personal army. They were strangely motivated by the fact that it was their 'hero' that was teaching them (they still hadn't stopped calling him that). The army he was training would not take missions but to train, defend their town and would answer to only him. He was now sure that he would not have to leave Konoha unauthorised for a very long time. When he was about to leave he left another highly powered fire clone to continue the training regiment and copies of all the books he had on his person, they would have to buy books from other places if they would wish to learn jutsu.

Finally, with Shin yu on his back and all his puppets safely sealed he waved to the now vibrant town and walked towards Ameagakure no Sato.

It was miles before he would reach the quiet village's border but then he heard a loud boom and did whatever any other 8 year old would do when he perceives a challenge. He ran towards the sound, but remembered that Shin was sleeping peacefully on his back so he made a clone and had it find an empty cave for them to camp and form a clone when he found one to tell him where it was.

He turned in the direction of the sound and was awed that he could still feel the tremors.

' _What was that?!'_ he thought as he rushed to the scene, forgetting that he left his mask for the cursed child to hold onto when they left the town.

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

Konan has never felt so much pain.

Pein had all his paths beat her into submission before she was Shinra Tenshi'd into the ground a few miles outside of Ame.

"when you see that our way is the only way for peace to be attained then you are welcome to come back, Konan" Pein's human path said from the edge of the newly formed crater to the downed woman in its centre, "if not don't bother coming back." With those parting words, the animal path summoned a large bird and used it to fly all the paths back to Ame.

The woman tried to move but was stabbed with pain in her arms and left leg. Tears welled up in her eyes but she refused to let them flow, _'what happened to you, Nagato.'_ She kept up her efforts but unconsciousness began clouding her mind, numbing her senses but before it took her away completely she saw a sight that would imprint itself in her memory until the day she dies.

A boy, far younger than herself hovered above her with a concerned frown and deep green eyes that looked down into her own, the last light of the day shone from behind him making him glow with ethereal beauty. She was in awe. The 'angel' of Ameagakure was in awe at the boy. There was no way a being could be so clean and innocent, she must surely be dying and her guardian angel was here to take her away.

"An angel…" she muttered before her grip on consciousness left her.

Hearing this from a woman he knew nothing of, Naruto quirked an eyebrow "what?"

He shook his head and examined her injuries. _'Broken left middle and pinkie fingers, dislocated arms, most likely fractured left leg and maybe a mild concussion. Oh and some cuts and bruises, not too major but they cannot be ignored either. Whoever did this to her must really hate her huh? If I take her back to the cave and tend to her injuries it would set me back on my trip to Ame'_ he looked down at the woman and noticed tears making tracks down her face, her eye shadow smudged and her face getting paler and paler. He sighed quietly _'curse my soft heart.'_

He summoned 5 clones and had them gather wood for a splint and quick stretcher. He gently straightened her arms, snapping them back into the sockets quickly and placed them in the splints. He straightened her legs and snapped that back into position and put that too in a splint. The clones the carefully hoisted her onto the makeshift stretcher and trudged out of the crater slowly with Naruto keeping her head steady. (I don't know if what I wrote on how to handle that sort of situation was correct but I hope you know what he was trying to do.) He couldn't use medical jutsu because of his chakra but he could mix herbs and broths that would help her recover relatively faster than normal. After they reached the cave and placed her down, he summoned wraps and spun the bandages around here injured limbs and her fingers and lay her down on the spare blankets his clone had been piling up. He sent 4 of them out to collect the needed herbs and roots and the other 2 to find food, preferably meat.

He set up a camp fire near her but not close enough to be uncomfortable and found Shin yu still hugging the clone he made before back tightly. He dispelled the clone and caught her as she fell and placed her near the fire gently and cover her with a blanket, she opened her eyes tiredly and smiled at him, he smiled back at her "go back to sleep." He whispered and she nodded before snuggling into the blanket. He looked back at his guest and sighed before he smiled slightly "you're going to be as good as new very soon." he walked up to the stranger and touched her forehead "fever" he mused loudly. Then clones he sent out for the herbs and roots came back with the ingredients and he set them to work boiling the water, putting the herbs in the water and after a few minutes he had them straining it into a wooden cup. He ground the roots and mixed it into the herb solution. He looked up to the entrance and saw his clones drag in a wild boar, "start cooking it" and with a 'Hai boss' they set to work. The blonde looked back at the injured stranger with his clones hovering over his shoulders, "hold her head up for me." When a clone did so, he brought the cup to her slightly parted pale red lips and tipped it in, she coughed weakly but he massaged her neck and tipped the cup again. She gulped it down and began mumbling incoherently, "place a damp rag on here forehead." After doing so, he took the strained herb leaves and placed them on the cuts and bruises, she winced every few times. He looked over his shoulder and nodded to the clone cooking the meat, he looked back at the woman and felt her forehead, "still feverish huh?" he motioned for more of the liquid herbs and had her drink it again.

He stood up and looked outside the cave; it was about midnight since the crescent moon was in the middle of the sky. _'Let's see how long you would heal.'_

She woke up after 16 days of being given the herbs and roots solution and meat broth. Her eyes snapped open and she groaned inaudibly, she looked around the strangely cosy stone walled place she was in and looked at the silhouette of a person sitting in front of a fire stirring a pot of what she could only assume was spicy meat, she made to stand up-

"I wouldn't if I were you." The person said, he sounded very young, "your leg isn't ready to take your weight yet." he froze and quickly added "not that your fat." He spooned some of the food into a wooden bowl and walked towards her and sat down near her head. He smiled at her and blew the bowl so it would cool down, "now, say ah…" she did not.

"Who are you and where am I?" she asked in her monotone voice, her eyes betraying her as she looked frantically about the place she was in.

He sighed and dropped the bowl, he looked outside and said, "I am someone who can't pass a person in need of aid without doing something about it and you are in a cave I found near Ame. And before you ask, yes I bathed you and yes I also dressed you." Not even the slightest bit embarrassed.

She stayed silent and looked at the person that spoke and gasped, _'the angel…'_ the camp fire shone from behind him in such a way it looked as ethereal as the first time she saw it, it looked like a halo shone about him and she felt strangely rejuvenated by his prescience.

"-llo, -ello, hello!" the boy said as he waved his hands in front of her face. She blinked twice and faintly blushed but kept quiet with her face straight; fearing that if she spoke she would say something very stupid, he hummed and checked her forehead temperature, "your fever has gone down" and then he held her arms up and moved them slowly, she felt goose bumps cover her arms at his touch, "do you feel any pain?" she shook her head silently and watched as he went to the other arm and asked again, she shook her head again. He went back to the broth and asked "you need to eat something, do you want me to feed you or you can do it yourself." She shrugged and took the bowl slowly and felt her stomach flutter when he grazed her fingers with his own, she then bowed her head in thanks and ate the food. It was delicious and it took everything she had in her body not to just throw the whole plate into her mouth. But she still shovelled it in faster.

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow in amusement "was it good?" she flushed and nodded, "can I know why you were half way to death in a crater?"

She cleared her throat "yes but only if you tell me the reason you were there in the first place." He shrugged and nodded "and your name" he hesitated for a minute before he nodded again. She motioned for him to sit near her and she began her story. From when she became an orphan during the third great Shinobi war, to when Hanzo the salamander killed a childhood friend of hers, to when her other childhood friend, Nagato, formed an organization of S-class nuke-nin on the order of a mysterious masked man who calls himself Madara Uchiha and finally ended by telling him what the organization planned to do with the bijou. She said all of this in a dull monotone, but Naruto stayed awake through it all because he was polite like that, "the masked man has blinded Nagato to Yahiko's true goal and is controlling him, I try to tell him but he does not want to listen to me." Here her voice filled with and emotion that could only be described as fiery "I am sure that masked man has other objectives that he does not want to tell us, I'm sure of it!" she looked back at Naruto and had to keep the awed tears in her eyes from falling when she again saw the ethereal glow around him, "wh-whats your story?" she felt that she at least owed him the truth and hoped he reciprocated.

The blonde puppeteer cracked his neck and looked at the sleeping child near the fire before he turned back to the woman named Konan. He also told her the truth. How his parents ignored him for his sister, how he taught himself all that he knew, how he planned and semi-succeeded in forming a spy network and how he now had a personal army in the making, "I was just on my way into Ame to find out why there was no current information about it."

"If you went there you wouldn't come out alive."

He was taken back by this, "how come, I could just sneak in?"

"The rain that falls around the village is laced with chakra, by the time it touches you, you would be surrounded and killed. There is no way to bypass it unless you are a member of the village."

"Why are you telling me this, I would have thought that you would at least cover up the fact that there is such an organisation. If their members found out that you told me you would be killed." He pointed out to the woman, "lucky for you, I'm good at keeping secrets."

"Don't worry about me dying, Naruto-san, because I will still go back there and try to convince Nagato that the path he is going down is not wise." She said firmly and looked at the roof expressionlessly.

"If you don't like what he is doing, why go back, why not give this information to a stronger village so that _they_ can do something about this."

"I-I-I don't know," Konan mumbled as she fiddled with the blankets wrapped around her, "maybe I just needed someone to talk to."

Naruto smirked slightly and nodded, and then he stood up and spooned more broth into her bowl, came back and handed it to her. He sat back down and watched her drink it with a dazed look in her eyes before he said "I'm no medic nin but you may need a month before you can walk with that leg."

"Thank you Naruto-san" he just waved it away and she went back to eating, then she gasped and looked at Naruto sharply. He raised an eyebrow at her in question. "if-if Nagato would not see that Madara is using him for _his_ goals, then I can try to foil their plans and show him that that masked man can not be trusted. I-I can be your spy in the Akatsuki!"

Naruto wanted to explode with joy inside but on the outside he kept his face perfectly neutral, "you don't have to do that. If they catch on to what you're doing they will kill you."

"I-I know, but it's a sacrifice worth taking if it would help Nagato see the person he is taking orders from. If I die, then I die" she replied with fire in her eyes, "at least-at least you will be able to protect your sister if someone is sent to kidnap her."

He sighed tiredly and slumped his shoulders before he took a deep breathe and nodded, "but if you see any signs that they are catching onto what you are doing, run." He said as he grasped her hands, "I can not have your death on my conscience."

She gave him a small smile and patted his hand, "I made the decision, Naruto-kun. If I die knowing that I prevented something that could spark more death, then I would die with a smile on my face." _'And with you in my mind, Naruto-kun.'_

He nodded solemnly and made to stand up but Konan's hand stopped him, "I need to get some sleep."

"c-cant you stay with me a little longer, we can just…talk," her voice quivered, she still wanted to listen his voice and look at his face for as long as possible. "That is if you want."

Obviously Naruto was oblivious to her thoughts or that her stoic face was reddening by the second, "ok, but are you catching a fever or something" he felt her forehead and she sighed wistfully.

"I'm-I'm fine Naruto-kun." She blubbered quickly and grabbed the hand on her forehead before she could faint. "Can-can you tell me a little about yourself."

That was how the night went. They discussed until the sunrise, they told each other their most intimate secrets (not the fact that she fancies him, of course) and their plans for the future. To her it felt oddly satisfying to confide in someone, Naruto knew this feeling because he had Shin yu with him longer than Konan had him.

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

"Thank you for coming, Naruto," Minato said from his desk in his study with Kushina standing beside his chair. He motioned for the boy to sit down in the seat in front of him "please sit." The boy did so wordlessly. "How have you been, we haven't seen each other in a while."

"I am fine, Tou-sama." He answered curtly with his clenched hands on his laps. "Why have I been called?"

It was Kushina that answered, "we are just concerned about you, you-you haven't been sleeping at home anymore."

"I am fine, kaa-sama; I have been sleeping in a friend's house."

"Why? You still have your room in _this_ house. Is this about my announcement on Mito's birthday" Minato asked, completely forgetting that it was also his birthday that day.

'Naruto' clenched his teeth a little and his eyes hardened at the fact that they still did not know it was his birthday as well. He answered "no."

"Then why isolate yourself from us, Naruto. We can try to make amends, in fact when is your birthday?" the Hokage asked.

The blonde boys clone scowled lightly "there is no need to make any kind of amends, Tou-sama, I. Am. Fine."

"We-we can train you" Kushina hurriedly blurted, "You have unlocked your chakra, right?"

If 'Naruto' was to grit his teeth anymore it would shatter, the temperature in the room dropped and the boys clones hair shadowed his eyes from sight. He answered with his voice perfectly neutral "there is no need to do that, kaa-sama, thank you for offering."

"Why are you being so stubborn? Cant you see that we are trying to bring our son back home!" the current Namikaze clan head shouted as he stood up abruptly. 'Naruto' did not even flinch, but kept his eyes hidden under his head, "and look at me when I speak to you, child!"

The boys clone slowly stood up and looked at his father who stepped back in shock at the amount of hate he saw. The pressure on him increased and his legs wobbled from underneath him but he stood strong, his mother was not so lucky; she fell on her knees gasping for air. Naruto took out his black sun glasses from his pocket and wore them, the pressure instantly disappeared and his parents breathed a sigh of relief.

'Naruto' kept his face stony and spoke, "I am not being stubborn _Tou-sama_ , I do not need your training _kaa-sama_ " the clone spat, "I am the best in the history of the academy, if you wish to find out how good I am go and ask the people who know me well enough if." With that the doppelganger bowed and left the room. His parents watched him go and could not bring themselves to stop him.

He closed the door and walked towards the exit before he stopped and used his chakra strings to grab his sister who was hiding above him. He smirked at her pout and ruffled her hair "next time try not to gasp too much." He dropped her onto the ground gently and made to move out but stopped when his sister grasped his hand softly.

"Nii-san, are you ok" she asked timidly scuffing her feet nervously from under his gaze.

"I am just a bit angry Mito-chan, nothing to be worried about." He replied as he ruffled her hair again, her cheeks reddening. He laughed when she tried to kick his shin but he lifted it out of the way just in time making her over swing and fall down.

"Naruto-nii-san that's not fair," she mumbled from the ground as she crossed her arms, pouting up at him. Then her face changed to that of glee "ne nii-san, I and the girls are planning to go shopping soon, d-do you want to come?"

He scratched his chin and asked "by any chance did you promise them that I would be there?" at her flush he continued "I thought so."

"Oh come on! It would be fun!" she yelled outraged and stood up, grabbing his hand and running outside. "Ino would be there and Hinata and Hanabi and Sakura and…" she kept prattling on names he half knew in class.

"Ok, ok just slow down!" he chuckled. "I'll go, but watch what you promise next time, Mito-chan."

"Thanks nii-san, you're the best" she squealed and dragged him towards the awaiting crowd of girls "oh and your paying!"

"Wonderful" he muttered sourly.

 **Authors note**

 **Aaaaaand done!**

 **B.j.**


	7. Chapter 7

Thank you **DragonPony022** for your honesty, its greatly appreciated and dude your reviews should keep coming. I actually contemplated removing that arachnid summoning scene, but I said whatev's. Now that I'm seein' your review I'm still face palming. The clone was pumped with enough chakra for some months still regarding the fact he would be practising jutsu. Yagura underestimated the kid; Naruto didn't give him a chance to correct his mistake by allowing him to use jutsu. I have no excuse for making a woman as friggin' strong as Mei seem like a pussy, hope I don't seem sexist. He didn't fool Sandaime, he calls the man grand pa so the fact he meets him for help or _something_ is not foolin'. If I were to say the difference between the contract Naruto has and the contract sound-Kidomaru Right?-has is that sound has spiders only; he has arachnids (spiders, scorpions, mite, ticks, etc.) lame, right?

His followers didn't just fall into his lap, at that time he was similar to how Orochimaru got Kimimaro but in Naruto's case he was in a merchant village, of course there are going to be plenty of street kids who cant keep up with the village, it may seem manipulative but whatever. Have you ever seen a street kid before? Yes? No? I thought so.

The part with his parents was not killer intent, well not purely. I have a friend who hates him parents so much he can form no coherent words to describe that hate, so he just uses his eyes. Minato and Kushina did not expect their own child to have so much raw, unadulterated and unfiltered hate. I'm not fooling. That's the truth. *Grins* my friend still hates his parents though, sadly but I think I'm making progress. I made the Naruto here similar to him.

Yo and did you forget, he suppressed the fear he had during the battle and felt it _after_. I do that when I want to write an exam, it works! Does that seem freaky to you?

 **UnsanMusho** I did not want the rebels to seem like pussies. But I can still say that no matter how much blood shed you see or killing you do, there would always be something that would get you nervous and/or terrified as shown by when Naruto beat Gaara in the sound/sand invasion arc.

Oh yeah! This is not a Naruto x Konan no matter how much it seems so. So she crushes on him, Whatev's. yeah she's heck a strong, yeah her paper jutsu is uber awesome but she does not seem like one to take a beating by six paths of Pein-even though she held her own with madara/obito/tobi/whatever-and take an almighty push into the ground without a screw in her head loosening.

 **Your reviews are awesome, keep 'em coming.**

 **Last time on: Greatness**

…"c-cant you stay with me a little longer, we can just…talk," her voice quivered, she still wanted to listen his voice and look at his face for as long as possible. "That is if you want."

Obviously Naruto was oblivious to her thoughts or that her stoic face was reddening by the second, "ok, but are you catching a fever or something" he felt her forehead and she sighed wistfully.

"I'm-I'm fine Naruto-kun." She blubbered quickly and grabbed the hand on her forehead before she could faint. "Can-can you tell me a little about yourself."

That was how the night went. They discussed until the sunrise, they told each other their most intimate secrets (not the fact that she fancies him, of course) and their plans for the future. To her it felt oddly satisfying to confide in someone, Naruto knew this feeling because he had Shin yu with him longer than Konan had him.

…

If 'Naruto' was to grit his teeth anymore it would shatter, the temperature in the room dropped and the boys clones hair shadowed his eyes from sight. He answered with his voice perfectly neutral "there is no need to do that, kaa-sama, thank you for offering."

"Why are you being so stubborn? Cant you see that we are trying to bring our son back home!" the current Namikaze clan head shouted as he stood up abruptly. 'Naruto' did not even flinch, but kept his eyes hidden under his head, "and look at me when I speak to you, child!"

The boys clone slowly stood up and looked at his father who stepped back in shock at the amount of hate he saw. The pressure on him increased and his legs wobbled from underneath him but he stood strong, his mother was not so lucky; she fell on her knees gasping for air. Naruto took out his black sun glasses from his pocket and wore them, the pressure instantly disappeared and his parents breathed a sigh of relief.

'Naruto' kept his face stony and spoke, "I am not being stubborn _Tou-sama_ , I do not need your training _kaa-sama_ " the clone spat, "I am the best in the history of the academy, if you wish to find out how good I am go and ask the people who know me well enough if." With that the doppelganger bowed and left the room. His parents watched him go and could not bring themselves to stop him.

 **Now…**

CHAPTER 7

"You don't have to do this, Konan" Naruto said straight faced to the taller woman as they were a few miles close to the Ame border. "You can make a life somewhere else."

The woman knelt down so that she would be eye level with the puppeteer, she took the boys hand and stroked it gently, and Naruto still not used to being touched by anyone besides shin yu flinched slightly. "Don't worry about me Naruto-kun, I'll be fine." And she kissed his cheek gently; the boy still flinched, and stood up. "Stay safe."

"I should be saying that to you."

Her stoic expression broke into a small smirk and she nodded before a small tornado of paper wrapped around her and formed wings. She gave a wave and the 'angel' of Ameagakure no Sato flew off into her village.

"Good riddance." A tiny voice muttered from behind him, he chuckled, turned around and ruffled her hair.

"Do you have a problem with Konan, Shin-chan?"

"Yes I have a problem with her!" she huffed as she crossed her arms "she keeps looking at you weirdly, like you're _kami_ or something. It's creepy."

He just grinned at her and shook his head, "I'm sure it's nothing." He then looked in the general direction of Konoha and spoke "we move towards Konoha until we're about a mile close to it then we wait until night fall before we move in. Did you forget anything in the cave?" she shook her head negatively. "Climb on we have a long way ahead."

The 5 year old clambered onto his back and secured her arms around his neck and squeaked "I'm ready." And he sped off into the trees.

Hours of running on the trees later and he could be seen sitting at the top of the highest tree he could find which was more than 40 feet high off the ground observing the guard rotation of Konoha's gates. It seems that the guards he knocked out raised a few eyebrows; he would have to be more careful next time.

"Ne, Naruto-san?" shin whispered from her perch beside him, swinging her legs idly. He hummed in question "what am I going to do in Konoha?"

He was quiet for a minute before he answered, "I honestly don't know. Maybe you can enrol in the ninja academy when you turn 8 if you want."

"I want to be a ninja, I really, really do, but what if no one wants to be my friend?"

Naruto was not the right person to answer this question, his only experience with having friends were with shino, Hanabi and maybe Hinata. He had no idea what to tell her, he searched his memory for what he would have told Mito and found the perfect words, "if no one wants to be your friend think nothing of it, I would always be your friend." He nodded resolutely before he added "and if anyone makes fun of you make them poop their pants."

She quietly watched him talk and when he finished she giggled into her hands. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow, he was sure that what he said was in no way funny before he shrugged thinking it was one of those girl things. She poked his shoulder, "is that what you did?"

"I think so, but I'm sure that is what my sister does and she has her own fan club."

"Fan club? Don't you have?"

"…I hope not."

"I'm sure you have fan girls _and_ fan boys." She whispered loudly.

He felt a shiver go down his spine, "I don't have fan boys."

"Oh shush, I bet you even have your own fan boy stalker."

"…we are not having this discussion."

She nudged his knee "why? Do you have something against gay people?"

"I don't."

"Do you even like anyone? Anyone at all? Even if it's a guy, I promise I won't judge."

He looked at her from the corner of his eye, "do _you_ like anyone or are _you_ gay, I promise I won't judge." She nudged him in the ribs, hard, he almost fell off his perch but he held on with his chakra.

"It depends on the kind of like you mean, Naruto-san." She then shifted uncomfortably and muttered with a heavy blush, "I like _you_."

"That's nice, shin-chan I like you too" our oblivious blonde responded as he patted her head. She growled and made to bite his hand but he removed it just in time to avoid her removing his finger. "What?" he asked but she just glared darkly at him before she turned away from him with a huff. _'Girls.'_

They stayed in silence with the cursed 5 year old occasionally growling and giving him a punch to his shoulder every time he breathed too loudly. _Finally_ it was time for them to move into Konoha and Naruto stood up and stretched along with the young girl. He turned around and she climbed onto his back, squeezing his neck a little too hard, "ready." Naruto nodded, or tried to, and sped off towards Konoha, running under the trees shadows and keeping watch for any sign of ANBU, he stopped under the a tree 30 feet from the gate and fixed on his half face mask and his glasses, double checking that his Henge was still in place and watched the one chunin gate keepers laugh at a joke while the other muttered something back to him angrily before he turned to an ANBU operative that had just jumped down from a nearby roof and waved, the operative nodded and stayed with them for his 2 hour shift and left. This was Naruto's chance; the next agent to come would in five minutes time. He shifted as close to the edge of the trees shadow, picked up a rock, calmed his breathing and ran out. The moon cast a shadow under him but surprisingly the guards did not notice. He reached the wall and slide close to the entrance, his heart defiantly beating drums in his ears, he threw the rock in the opposite direction so that the guards would follow the sound, they did, and he slinked through the gate and ran as fast as he could to Higuarashi's weapons shop, unaware of the eyes-or eye-that watched him.

This was one of the times Kakashi was glad he actually came to his post early. He was not amused. He stealthily followed after the small shadow that was running towards the market district, his sharingan eye still hidden behind his dog ANBU mask. When he noticed that the person was slowing down, he made his move. He jumped down in front of the shadow and silently took a stance. The person jerked backwards and he could have sworn he heard the person swallow.

"Who are you and why are you in Konoha?" he asked, his care free voice gone and in its place a commanding voice. The short person took a stance quietly, the war veteran could see a few holes in it but he just assumed that the person put them there on purpose. "Reveal yourself or there will be trouble." Still no answer. Kakashi cocked his head to the right slightly before he blurred out of sight and appeared behind the person, going for an incapacitating chop in the neck but the person rolled out of the way in time for the hand to just graze his neck and took a more defensive stance, Kakashi shrugged and charged again going for the right hook but when the person dodged he cleared his feet from under him, the person rolled away again and formed two hand seals. _'Fire clone technique.'_ And four more shadowy persons burst into life and one of the clones took a bundle from the originals back and hid away in an alley. The copy ninja cocked an eye brow at the unfamiliar jutsu but shrugged again. The person sent his clones after him and charged in as well.

If the copy ninja was to give this mysterious person credit it would be that he was fast, not faster than what he was used to but still faster than most jounin. The shadow's clone surrounded him and worked in sync with each other, raining down punches, kicks, knees and elbows but the more experienced (and prepared!) man dodged, parried and countered expertly and the clones didn't even dispel until he gave them killing blows to the head and dodging barely suppressed (he assumed that the person did not want his colleagues' to notice) explosions of fire. The went at it directly for half an hour and the child (he also assumed that the mysterious person was a child) was not even showing signs that he was struggling to keep up even after all the tags Kakashi had scored on him. The person finally got a kick to the gut to Kakashi and jumped back, he then tried shooting a green string from his fingers but the man, knowing better than to allow them to touch him, jumped out of the way and revealed his sharingan. The person noticed this and his strings fumbled a bit and he unsealed a wrapped up human like person.

' _A puppet master huh?'_ he mused to himself _'I don't think Suna has any quarrel with us. I need to end this quickly before he has another trump card.'_ The puppet held a black scythe that hummed with the strange green chakra coating it and it ran towards him. Kakashi removed two of his kunai and caught the downward hack the mummy puppet gave him. The puppets speed was faster than the puppeteers, he was actually glad that he had uncovered his sharingan eye, he assumed, again, that this was the puppeteers taijutsu puppet so he made the puppet in such a way as to remove the normal inhibitions a human had in fighting, maybe in a few more years the puppeteer would become more proficient in using the puppet. The war veteran parried the slash and stabbed the puppets hand making the puppet drop its weapon but it still held on strong so Kakashi used his other kunai and slashed at its head but it bent unnaturally and used its momentum to kick him in the chin, the 'Kakashi' dispersed in a cloud of smoke and the real him grabbed the mummy's ankles and dragged it down to its chin, its scythe clattered to the ground. Kakashi then kicked its head away with a chakra powered foot and it flew at the mystery child who caught it easily. He was slightly winded but it was nothing he was not used to, he cracked his neck and dodged an enraged and sloppy kick to the chest and grabbed the leg, and he used the leg and slammed the person into the Higuarashi's weapon shops wall and held him there.

"That was very entertaining, now who are you?" he quickly held a kunai to the child's neck when his sharingan eye detected that the person wanted to use his strings "and no strings please or else."

The person slumped his shoulders and a nodded his head. "My mask and glasses." He whispered and the other masked man took them off and as if on cue the moon came out from behind the clouds and shone on them. He let them to the ground and the person's hair changed from black to blonde and his pupil-less green eyes changed to pupil'd green eyes. "Hello, Kakashi-san."

"Naruto?" the boy nodded and Kakashi let the boy fall to the ground and took a few steps back to allow the boy room to stand up and dust himself off "you're the person that knocked out Izumo and Kotetsu 5 months ago" another nod, Kakashi sighed and removed his ANBU mask. "The Naruto in the village is a clone, isn't it?" Nod "the clone was very convincing but why leave the village in the first place."

After a pause, Naruto answered, "I don't have to tell you that, I did nothing criminal."

"No you don't and no you didn't but you have to tell me why you left in the first place or I could just let Hokage-sama ask you himself." He noticed that the boy's eyes darkened "is that going to be a problem?"

"…I will not tell you why I left; you can tell Tou-sama if you want." He answered coolly.

Kakashi knelt down to the boys height and grabbed the boys shoulders, looking deep into the boys eyes, "Naruto, just tell me what you were doing outside Konoha, if it was worthwhile I can keep it a secret but if it goes against internal security I'll have to tell the Hokage." The boy's eyes stayed on his defiantly before the blonde sighed quietly.

"I-I was fulfilling an ambition, I promise it isn't against internal security, in fact it may even benefit Konoha." Kakashi motioned for him to continue "I found people that wanted to be my spies." The man held his laugh in but he still looked as sceptical as his mask allowed, "I'm being honest, it worked but I just need some more years before there can be any results." The man stared at the boy silently and cocked his head to the side "I-I also helped Kiri win their civil war." Kakashi let a small laugh out before he stopped himself when he saw the boy's serious face.

"Really? You helped them end their war?"

"Hai, Kakashi-san you can confirm when I become a jounin."

"Why when you become a jounin?"

"I agreed with their Kage to not release my real identity until I become jounin."

"…let's say I believe you, who taught you how to use puppets to fight?"

"I taught myself." Naruto stepped back from the man's grip and coughed into his hand "please do not tell anyone about what happened tonight." The jounin mulled it over in his mind before he nodded. Naruto bowed and waved over the clone he sent away with the bundle that came over, "take her to bed." The clone saluted and walked into the shop after he brought out a spare key. He turned to the now standing jounin and motioned to where he buried his puppet.

Kakashi scratched the back of his head and mumbled an apology before he used _'earth release: hiding like a mole'_ to pull out the puppet and the boy sealed it back with its head. The man put on his ANBU mask and waved before he disappeared in a leaf shunshin. When he left Naruto sighed heavily and stumbled through the shops door, locking it behind him. He turned around and stopped mid step when he found the wide eyed daughter of the shop owner watching him, he waved at her and kept walking down to the work shop/forge and found his replacement clone sitting over a desk scribbling furiously on a sheet of paper. He ignored the clone for now and walked over to where his other puppet placed Shin yu to sleep. He sat down on the edge of the cot and smiled when he saw the girl open her eyes.

"Did you win?" she whispered. He shook his head negatively "did he hurt you?"

"A little but I'm ok." He patted her head and she smiled brightly then she yawned quietly, "sleepy?"

"Yeah." She nodded and closed her eyes, "good night."

"…good night."

Standing up he walked around the workshop and unsealed all his puppets and hung them on the walls except his python puppet, _'I have to find a way to reduce and increase its size, it should be my second trump Card.'_ but he put his mummy puppet on the table with its head beside the body. He then walked over to his clone and looked over his shoulder. "Why are you drawing a house blue print?"

The puppet did not flinch or waver but it kept on scribbling and cleaning the drawing, "I need to give you my report before you would understand why I'm drawing it."

"Go on…"

The clone stopped drawing and turned towards his 'boss', "you'll need to sit down for this, boss." Naruto pulled over a spare log of wood and sat down on it. "Well…"

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

 **3** **months later**

The Konoha academy had just dismissed and the students were scampering out of the class, chattering amongst themselves loudly, all except one student who carefully trudged to the front of the class to the teacher's desk.

"Iruka-sensei" Naruto said as he got to the class's sensei's desk. The teacher was just packing up the test they had just taken and had already told Mizuki that he could handle it so he could go home early. He looked down when he heard the voice and smiled at his start pupil. He was sure that he would recommend to him to take the academy's graduation early because it seemed that there was nothing he could teach the boy. He nodded at the boy to continue "I wanted to ask if I could take the graduation exams tomorrow."

The man was taken aback by the request; it seemed that the boy also had similar thoughts. "Do you think you're ready to become a ninja, Naruto-kun?"

"Hai, sensei."

"Why do you want to graduate early?"

"I already have knowledge of whatever the academy wants to teach and the two basic jutsu and my fire clone."

"Fire clone?"

"It's a cloning jutsu I made because I have too much chakra for the basic illusionary clone."

The teacher beamed down at his student, _'he has already started making jutsu.'_ "I even wanted to ask you if you wanted to graduate early, it seems you do. Report to room 13 for the exams." He said to the normally stoic boy, and as an afterthought "try your best Naruto and don't be intimidated by the other students, they may not be happy that you want to graduate early. Good luck." Naruto bowed to his teacher and left the class with a secret smirk on his face.

He walked out of the academy's main entrance and sighed tiredly, "I hope eavesdropping on my conversations doesn't become a recurring thing, Mito-chan."

He turned around and found the teary eyed Mito Uzumaki-Namikaze looking at him heartbroken. His gaze softened and he opened his arms, she took timid steps towards him and entered his offered hug. "What's wrong?"

She sniffed into his chest and muttered "why? Why do you want to graduate early? Why do you want to leave me alone?"

"I'm not leaving you alone, just like you heard before there is nothing the academy has left to teach me."

"There has to be something!" she shouted into his hoodie jacket, "what if someone makes fun of me again?"

"Then you kick his or her butt." He answered swiftly, "I can't always be here to defend you, Mito-chan, if I was you would never get stronger…and no, you can't graduate with me. Not yet anyway."

"Why not! I know stuff too!" she exclaimed as she punched his chest tiredly.

"I know you know stuff, but you don't know enough." He winced when she kicked his shin "your smart but you're not ready yet, promise me you won't graduate early."

"…promise. But-but you have to make it up to me somehow." She said and looked up at him red cheeked.

Naruto stepped back and grinned at her "I'm not going shopping with your friends again, Mito-chan."

"What! Why not?!"

He looked at her quietly for a few seconds before he pinched his nose "the money I wasted on that day could have lasted 4 months if I used it normally." She pouted, "When you decide on something useful for me to give you or do for you let me know. Now, let's get you home."

"Aren't you ever coming back home, nii-san?" she said as they walked towards the Kage mansion.

"Nope."

"Why?"

"I don't think I'll be able to endure living with my birth parents that don't even remember my birthday, Mito-chan, or the fact that I have long since unlocked my chakra and they still don't know, among other things."

Her shoulders slumped in defeat and she sighed dourly. Naruto patted her shoulder silently and they arrived at the mansion. "See you later, nii-san." She said and hugged him tightly; he hugged her back, waved at her and left to the Higuarashi work shop.

The next day, Naruto woke up before sunrise to see Shin yu curled up on his chest. He silently stood up and held in a laugh that she clung even more onto him, he called over his Kumo puppet and handed her to it and then he made a fire clone and had Kumo hand her over to the clone.

"When she wakes up take her to the park to play, get her to make a friend." The clone nodded and smiled down at the sleeping child clinging onto him for dear life. The real Naruto made another clone "you go and find a plot of land near the forest and find out if the land lord is willing to sell it to a minor, even though I _will_ soon become a ninja, legally but without any strings attached. When I become a genin see I'll see when I can start with that building." The clone nodded and went off to the work bench where he kept the plans for the house and sat down, he still had about 3 more hours before Konoha truly woke up.

The blonde stretched and looked at his Kumo puppet that was still standing near him; he shrugged and sealed him up in his wrist, _'you never know when I'll need him.'_ His eyes then travelled to his mummy puppet and he made another clone, "fix him and examine his seals, his head should not have come off that easily and when you're done find out if there's a way I can reduce pythons size." He cracked his neck and walked over to his door and sighed, he snapped open the door and watched amused as Higuarashi's daughter stumbled through and stood up abruptly, scratching the back of her head guiltily. Naruto just cocked an eyebrow "Good morning Higuarashi-san, is there a reason you've been spying on me?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She responded and glared at him, she was shorter than him by an inch and she reminded him so much of his sister so it wasn't very intimidating.

"I have excellent hearing, I could basically hear you breathing from inside hear,"

She decided to come clean "alright yes I was spying on you. How did you get so much money?"

"…you took it upon yourself to find out if I was selling people or running a drug ring in secret?" she actually nodded, Naruto cracked a small smirk at this "I'm not so you can sleep well, I just have plenty of people that can give me money if I ask for it. Why didn't you just assume that it was my Tou-sama that gives me money." He said as he walked out the door and motioned for her to follow; she did so reluctantly because she was still in her pyjamas.

"It's obvious you don't like him much, if not you'd be staying with him in the Kage's mansion or something."

He patted her head and walked up to the front door before he stopped, "what's your name?"

"Ten-ten."

"Do you want to be a ninja, ten-ten-san?"

"…yes I do."

"Some advice: try breathing exercises and meditation." She nodded and he waved to her before he walked out the door.

Two hours of jogging and meditating later, we now find our blonde puppeteer sitting down in room 13. He was the first to arrive so he took out a book he had on him about human anatomy; **The Human Body by Tsunade Senju**. This wasn't the first time he had the read the book but he just felt like he would need the knowledge very soon. He was so deep in the book that he did not notice that the room had started filling up. The students that encountered the son of the Hokage sitting in the examination room did not know whether to be offended that someone younger than them wanted to take the exams with them or annoyed that he thought he could take the exams early, so naturally they took both options in fair and equal amounts and glared at him. One of the braver students walked up to him and cleared her throat loudly.

"You're in my seat."

"I didn't see a name on it." He answered without looking up.

"You're in the wrong class."

"No, I'm not."

"Just because you're Yondaime-sama's kid doesn't mean you can take the exams early."

"The Yondaime has nothing to do with me being here." He said as he turned a page nonchalantly, "and I'd prefer it if you leave me alone to read."

She made to grab the book but he slapped her hand away, "I bet you don't even understand what you're reading." She snorted.

"Whether I understand it or not doesn't concern you."

She slammed her hands down on his desk, "you think you're so cool, huh?"

"No, but I think you should go back to your seat, you're making a scene."

" _I_ am not making a scene, kid."

"Then why are you still standing there. There are enough empty seats left."

She huffed and gave a last glare at him before she went back to her seat. The class erupted into whispers after witnessing the scene; this was nothing that they expected the child of a Kage to behave like. Meanwhile, Naruto kept his eyes glued on a page in his book.

He had the book since he read about human puppets from the bingo book. It still did not disgust him, it intrigued him greatly. What does one have to do to turn a person into his puppet? He had no intention of turning his comrades' dead bodies into his puppets, but instead to experiment on konoha's enemies.

He had long since decided that he would reveal to the whole of the elemental nations that he was a puppeteer in the chunin exams if he got the chance. He mentally noted to upgrade his Kumo puppet. The spies he had in the other nations and hidden villages were doing well except for the few he had in Kumo who found it hard to sneak into the village but were later allowed access when they travelled in under the guise of cloth fibre merchants who wished to settle, apparently Kumo wasn't a very popular place for cloth fibre merchants. (Just go with it). The easiest to get in were the ones in Iwa who allowed in anyone who showed willingness to join their forces, despite them having many strong ninja. (Again, just go with it).

His reading was cut off by someone taking a seat besides his, the boy coughed into his hand. Naruto looked at him from the corner of his eye before he looked back to his book. The boy had light blue hair that fell down his face and hid his eyes which were equally light blue if they were seen. He had on khaki's and a brown sleeveless shirt with black sandals. The boy tried to discretely look at what the blonde was reading but Naruto tilted the book so he could see the diagram of the human excretory organ, the boy fell back on his chair pale at the diagrams detail. He seemed to gain control of his breathing before he grinned at the younger boy.

"Yo!"

"Hello." Naruto responded without looking up.

"My name's Nobu Tsukabi." (Totally AU. I don't even know if that's a real name so from here on out just humour me)

"Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze, nice to meet you"

"Same bro, same." The boy named Nobu smiled, "so…what are you reading?"

"The human anatomy by Tsunade Senju."

"cool." The blue haired boy said "do you want to become a medic nin?"

"No, I just feel like the knowledge would be useful."

"That's nice. My brother is a medic nin and he reads that kind of book."

"That's nice. Is he a combat medic nin or the type that prefer staying in the hospital?" Naruto looked at him and asked, just to be polite.

"He's more into working in the hospital, but he goes on missions when he's told to."

He nodded and went back to his book. He briefly wondered how the boy could fight with his hair blocking his eyes but he countered himself by asking how his corrosive chakra to manipulate his puppets without burning them. He worked on it and adapted. Seals also helped.

Finally, the door opened and the sensei in charge of administering the exam walked in and raised his hand for silence. He was a bulky man with brown hair and round rosy cheeks with swirls on them; he wore the standard chunin uniform. His eyes roved over the students until it came to a stop on Nobu who was still chattering quietly with Naruto who just nodded every once in a while, responded and all the while he kept reading. He remembered that Iruka told him telling him that he was very smart; he had to see it for himself.

The room was quiet and hey observed the sensei nervously, "good morning, genin aspirants, my name is Kencho Akimichi and I will be the one to administer the written portion of the exams. After this test, you will all wait until your names are called and you will go to the room 14 and perform your taijutsu test, and after that you go to room 15 for your weapons and ninjutsu test, when you finish you come back here and wait for your results to be pasted before you will be dismissed. Does anyone want me to repeat what I have just said?" nobody spoke. "good." He went seat after seat and shared the test scripts. He reached Naruto's desk and was surprised to see that he had dropped the book; he had been looking at him, he shrugged and gave his test paper. He stalked to the front of the class. "Do not cheat, there are other eyes watching this exam." To prove his point an ANBU agent, dog, appeared beside the man, waved to Naruto and disappeared. The bulky man looked at his watch and then he looked at the class. "Time starts now."

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

In the Hokage's office, sitting around the Hokage's desk watching the exams through the Sandaime's glass ball was Minato Namikaze, Kushina Uzumaki, Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo Shimura. The last persons reasons for watching was not fully understood but they all just assumed that he wanted to watch what konoha's academy would produce. While in actuality he was watching Naruto and how he behaved to see if it was still possible to recruit him to his secret ROOT ANBU program, so far the boys quiet and secretive disposition convinced him that there was still a chance.

When the written portion finished, they watched the boys sparring match against a chunin sensei. Naruto had decided not to use his _'dizzy spell fist: first arm'_ so that his sensei could see him clearly. So they watched, surprised, as he ran circles around the chunin who struggled to block his blows. The blonde feinted a kick to the shoulder but kicked her behind the left knee. The woman rolled out of the way from an axe kick but when she stood up she couldn't block the punch to her stomach and kick to her other knee. Naruto surprised the audience by taking a more defensive strike and waiting for the chunin to stand up before he motioned for the woman to attack. The woman shrugged and ran at the boy with a palm strike, the boy countered and jabbed her side with two left hooks and turned around and gave the woman a right elbow which caught her shoulder. Naruto stepped back and waited for the teacher to catch her breath, he smiled when he saw the woman crack her neck and charge at him. The teacher sent a blow to the chest and the boy caught the blow and used the momentum to pull her over his head onto the ground. The teacher lost her breath from the fall and stayed down for a minute before she got back to her feet shakily. She walked to the table at the far corner of the room which had three more chunin sitting near it and wrote down Naruto's score and nodded to the door, telling him non-verbally that he could go.

The rest of the exams went about the same way. In the weapons test he chose senbon-instead of the more usually used kunai-and shuriken and scored a perfect ten in each of his targets. In his ninjutsu test, he used a seal to Henge into the Sandaime, replaced with a nearby chair when a blunted kunai was thrown at him with four seals and used an unfamiliar cloning jutsu that left his parents and the sensei's gaping. He was given a forehead protector and he walked out of the room calmly, entered into the first room and waited until he was dismissed. He nodded to a blue haired boy as he sat down and wished him luck when he stood up. The boy came back with his own forehead protector, he looked up from his book, nodded at him then he went back to it. An hour later the results were pasted on the walls, unsurprisingly (for us at least) Naruto took the Rookie of the Year title.

Minato was musing to himself on why Naruto didn't tell him or Kushina that he wanted to graduate early. "Minato-kun? Did you hear what I said?" Hiruzen asked the quiet man, "I said that Naruto should be apprenticed to Ibiki Morino of the T&I."

"Why would you suggest something like, Sandaime-sama?" Kushina asked.

"He is not a team sort of person and he told me himself that he wanted to go into torture and interrogation."

The Yondaime was quiet before he said "but he's just 8. He's too young to be in the T&I. He should be around other children near his age, and if to say I allow him to be apprenticed how would he become a chunin?"

"If I may make a suggestion, Hokage-sama." Danzo said, entering into the conversation for the first time "he should be placed in a team with capture and interrogation functions similar but not the same as the Ino-Shika-Cho team. His fighting style is good and he is quiet enough to sneak up on or spy on someone."

"That's a good idea, Danzo-san." Minato nodded, "I even have the perfect sensei for the team."

"Who?" Kushina asked, standing beside him. The answer the Hokage gave them made them all nod I agreement, all that remained was organizing the graduating students into teams.

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

"Congratulations on getting Rookie of the Year, Naruto" Nobu said to the stoic boy beside him as they walked to the Aburame clan, more like Naruto walked to the Aburame clan while Nobu followed because he had 'nothing else to do.'

"Thank you, Nobu-san." He responded. He still felt uncomfortable that the older boy was _still_ talking to him but he shrugged it off. The Aburame clan head had called him over when he finished his exams so that the clan and a few of his friends could congratulate him on passing, the clan was not well known for being social but they could be friendly if they wanted to be and since Naruto was a friend of the clan they could cut him some slack and smile at him, even in public. The same could be said about the Hyuuga who were usually stoic and snooty to those they perceived as beneath them. Naruto was proud about the fact that he could get the two clans who would rather remain expressionless to smile at him.

He felt a shiver go up his spine it reminded him of his first time in Train Town before he killed the dragon, he was being watched. He turned to a tree sharply and glared at it for a full minute before he shrugged and resumed his walk with Nobu chattering away about something 'how ninjutsu was cooler than taijutsu.'

Back in the tree a ROOT ANBU operative kept vigil watch over the boy and sped away back to the base to report back to Danzo on where Naruto would be until it was late into the night.

 **Authors note**

 **I truly did not expect so many people to like my story. AWESOME! Keep 'em coming.**

 **There would be a lot more OC's in this story so be prepared.**

 **I plan on writing another two other Naruto story, I'll be updating them soon. Make sure you read them.**

 **Naruto lost against Kakashi because I believe ANBU are genetically altered to never underestimate anyone, but they can go easy on people.**

 **Read and Review.**

 **B.j.**


	8. Chapter 8

To: Guest, they'd all find out that the clone in Konoha was a fake soon.

 **DragonPony002** your opinion has been noted, dude. He could have lasted longer against Kakashi but he wanted to be silent, he didn't want to bring the whole of Konoha down on his head. Listen dude, tank is too big and loud, the spike of chakra after using his black hole puppet would attract attention. But I do not regret not bringing out Kumo; I really don't know how to visualize the thing fighting. READ! Who isn't driven by power, he wants to succeed and to do that he needs power. Like Iwa doesn't hate the leaf already, YEAH I'll stick with the human puppets thank you very much. And have you heard of masks? They're pretty cool. Finally, yeah he could beat Kaguya, of course not now, but in the future.

 **Last time on: Greatness**

… Minato was musing to himself on why Naruto didn't tell him or Kushina that he wanted to graduate early. "Minato-kun? Did you hear what I said?" Hiruzen asked the quiet man, "I said that Naruto should be apprenticed to Ibiki Morino of the T&I."

"Why would you suggest something like, Sandaime-sama?" Kushina asked.

"He is not a team sort of person and he told me himself that he wanted to go into torture and interrogation."

The Yondaime was quiet before he said "but he's just 8. He's too young to be in the T&I. He should be around other children near his age, and if to say I allow him to be apprenticed how would he become a chunin?"

"If I may make a suggestion, Hokage-sama." Danzo said, entering into the conversation for the first time "he should be placed in a team with capture and interrogation functions similar but not the same as the Ino-Shika-Cho team. His fighting style is good and he is quiet enough to sneak up on or spy on someone."

"That's a good idea, Danzo-san." Minato nodded, "I even have the perfect sensei for the team."

"Who?" Kushina asked, standing beside him. The answer the Hokage gave them made them all nod I agreement, all that remained was organizing the graduating students into teams.

…

… He felt a shiver go up his spine it reminded him of his first time in Train Town before he killed the dragon, he was being watched. He turned to a tree sharply and glared at it for a full minute before he shrugged and resumed his walk with Nobu chattering away about something 'how ninjutsu was cooler than taijutsu.'

Back in the tree a ROOT ANBU operative kept vigil watch over the boy and sped away back to the base to report back to Danzo on where Naruto would be until it was late into the night.

 **Now…**

CHAPTER 8

After the gathering we find Naruto walking with the Hyuuga clan head and his daughters back to the clan compound. Nobu had already gone home after experiencing the full brunt of an Aburame/Hyuuga 'party' which, to put it politely, was very slow, quiet and boring. Exactly how Naruto liked it. Our blonde was presently listening to Hanabi rant-quietly of course-about how boring it was, at the front Hiashi's lips twitched upwards but he kept himself in check. He had long since gotten used to the fact that Hanabi inherited neither of her parents behaviours, where she got her attitude from he couldn't even guess, or didn't want to.

Hinata was also quietly listening to her sister rant. She kept sneaking looks at the blonde walking slightly ahead of her. "A-ano Hanabi-chan, it wasn't _that_ boring."

The younger sister looked at her aghast at what she had just said, "How can you even say that. I saw _shino_ fall asleep, and he was _standing_." She made sure to keep her voice down so her father wouldn't hear, which he did, "you think it was boring right, Naruto?"

"I enjoyed it very much." He said and watched amused as the younger Hyuuga raised both her hands in the air in exasperation.

"You're just being polite. I swear I don't even know if you can say anything bad. I bet you don't even know any offensive words." Hanabi pointed out to her friend. Naruto smirked down at her and cocked his head to the side. He smiled widely when the girl gulped quietly.

"I prefer keeping my insults in my head, but I see your point. I read that insults can encourage camaraderie but I did not see the point in it. From now on I would not keep my words in my head." He looked at the clan head who was obviously listening in on the conversation before he looked at the red faced Hinata who grew even redder; he chuckled at this, "just be careful what you say around me, my comments would be far from nice."

"Whatever, so what sort of team do you think they'll put you in?"

"Any team is fine; I'll still become jounin in any way possible. What team do you think I'll get into Hiashi-sama?"

The man shrugged, "I don't know, you could be in an assault team because of your taijutsu, you could be in a capture and interrogation because of your speed, it all depends on what Yondaime-sama chooses."

The rest of the walk continued on in silence. They reached the Hyuuga clan compound and Naruto bowed to the clan head and waved at his daughters. He proceeded walking towards the workshop but made a turn into the village's park. He sat on a bench and waited silently for whoever was following him to come out, he waved to some of the chunin that passed by and looked at the suns position, it was about mid-afternoon. Half an hour later and he was still waiting, then an old man with the right side of his head wrapped up in bandages and the right side of his body covered by his clothes walked up to the bench with his cane in his left hand and sat down. He looked to be about the Sandaime's age but unlike the Sandaime, he looked like the previous great ninja war left him with souvenirs' over his body.

He found out he was being followed because every time he looked into the window of a nearby shop he would see a young boy sending him an obviously fake smile, he wore a blue shirt and black pants. It was obvious that he wanted Naruto to notice him. The man beside Naruto however was blank faced; they stared out at a near pond. If it were sunset then the view would have been beautiful, the pond was where some of the civilian children chose to play at; they splashed at themselves but made sure not to venture too deep into it.

The man cleared his throat but kept his gaze on the children, "you are very aware of your surroundings if you noticed one of my men following you, Naruto-san." He looked at the equally blank faced boy beside him before he looked back at the scene. "Even though he was not trying to hide his presence too much, it was still applaudable."

"Why did you have people tail me, Danzo-sama?" The boy said as he frowned unhappily. He recognized the man from the many times he went to the Hokage's tower to visit his Tou-sama. From the start he chose to be weary around the man because he would always look at him like a prized weapon he wanted all for himself. The blonde's right arm was on the arm rest and his left was on his lap "I don't like being stalked or followed by those I am not familiar with."

"I mean you no harm, child, I just wanted to offer something to you." The man droned. He reminded Naruto of Shibi but he knew Shibi had more emotions in his body than the man.

"You could have summoned me, sir."

"I could have but I didn't. I wanted to see if you were as good as your academy reports say." Danzo said, he laid his walking stick beside him and relaxed slightly into the chair.

Naruto's frown deepened and his right hand twitched. The posture the man took was too relaxed from the times he saw him, like he wanted him to also relax-which he wouldn't-or he didn't expect him to attack or he had people that guarded him but he didn't see anyone besides the children and their parents. A parent caught his eye, he was pale with black hair and generic clothes, he was looking over the playing children but kept subtly glancing at them, he took to watching the children but another of them caught his eyes, _'the boy that was following me,'_ He looked at the crippled man and allowed a glare to show, "why would you want to keep tabs on me, I'm nothing special."

"Contrary to that, child, you are very special." He brought out a file from… _somewhere_ and flipped it open, "your taijutsu is excellent, your chakra doesn't allow you to perform illusions but you adapted and you are proficient in most of the affinities with a jutsu in all." He looked at the boy whose glare intensified, "there are also something's that you don't allow a select few to know. Like you are proficient in puppetry despite your corrosive chakra and you left a clone while you travelled the elemental nations."

The boy looked back at the scene before him and his right hand twitched again but he kept calm, "do you mind if I ask how you found out?"

"No I do not mind. Even though you have kept it mostly secret I had people follow you about so silently your 'excellent hearing' wouldn't hear them and you aren't the only one who has knowledge on seals, child. Yes, you are very special and your parents still don't know." He closed the folder and returned it to wherever he got it from. "Back to the topic at hand. I am here to present an offer only the foolish would deny." The boy stayed silent "I want you to join my ninja program."

"Ninja program?"

"Yes, I have been training ninjas in secret for over a decade for the good of Konoha. They are the root that keeps this great tree strong, we take the missions and decisions that other ninjas frown upon but we would do anything to keep Konoha safe. I offer you training in exchange for your loyalty to Konoha and me."

"So those two that are over there are your ninjas'" the man remained unfazed, he smirked slightly and nodded, "this ninja program that you're talking about is not well known, even by the Hokage." The man stared at the children playing silently before he nodded, "you do know that I could take what you told me to the Hokage to investigate on you, right?" the man's smirk widened slightly at the boys words, "even though the fact that your program take in hard missions is tempting I do not wish to join it, I am happy with my development speed and I still serve Konoha even if I do not join you." He unsealed a senbon but hid it in his sleeve, "I can keep your secret, Danzo-sama, if you stop following me."

"I did not give you an option, child." He stood up, and retrieved his cane, "you are too young to understand the full gravity of what I want to give you, but I will give you time to mature and think about it before I come back. If you still wouldn't join I would force you to join. I'll give you two years too mull it over." He nodded at him and hobbled away, Naruto watched him leave before he sighed in relief, he was most definitely not in the mood to fight, especially with his Sarutobi-oji-sama's rival. He slumped back and closed his eyes, not too long later another person sat down beside him. The person was silent until he was prodded in the ribs, he cracked open his eyes and the only thing that stopped the 8 year old from having a nose bleed was the fact that he had seen the female anatomy before, numerous times; he walked in as his mother was bathing…numerous times, long story.

"What's up, brat?" the woman said loudly, she gave him a feral grin when he gave her a once over with his open eye but frowned when he closed his eyes again. She wore a tan trench coat with nothing under it but full body mesh armour and a _very_ short orange skirt.

"Who are you?" he said with his eyes still closed. His right hand tapped on the armrest slowly, he scratched his cheek and sighed again.

"It's rude not to look at a lady when she's talking to you," she said sickly sweetly.

He cracked an eye open and looked at her before he closed it, again "lady? All I see is a woman that has horrible eye sight and a screw loose in her head because no 'lady' would wear that in public. I don't know why you haven't been arrested for public indecency yet." She grits her teeth in anger and growled, "I'm just being honest."

"You're being an asshole, brat." She snarled quietly "and you're too young for that."

"And you are still here and I still don't know your name."

"My name is Anko Mitarashi and I am a special jounin working in the T&I." She slipped out a kunai and trailed it down Naruto's cheek, his right index finger twitched again, "who are you?"

"Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze and could you stop doing that."

She ignored his request, "the Hokage's kid huh? I expected more."

"What do you expect from an 8 year old child you just met? Do you expect me to have eight packs or bulging biceps or what?" He winced quietly when the kunai pressed in deeper, "there must really be a screw loose if you expected more. Anko-san, I don't like wounds, please stop." She leaned on him and put her leg over his, "I apologise for being rude before, Anko-san but I'm really not in the mood to fight."

"Like a brat like you could do anything that could harm me." She said and took the kunai off his cheek but still kept it in her hand; she looked at the boy the Hokage had her befriend and huffed mentally. _'I have better things to do than befriend a brat.'_ The blonde man had called her to his office that morning and he instructed her to get closer to his child. His wife, who stood beside him, actually pleaded with her. "What are you doing here all by yourself anyway?"

He breathed a sigh of relief and answered, "Enjoying the calm, what are _you_ doing here?"

"I just felt like going for a walk, I found it strange that an academy age student like yourself wearing a _hitaite_ sitting all by himself when he should be with his friends doing something worthwhile." she took to running her fingers through his hair and noticed that his right hand twitched dangerously but ignored it, "what shampoo do you use kid; your hair is so _soft!_ " he opened his eyes and stood up quickly. He eyed her suspiciously; she had purple hair in a pony tail that reminded him of the lazy Nara in his former class and brown eyes, his eyes zeroed in on the mark on her neck. After a few minutes of silence she asked, "What?"

"Who did that to your neck?" she flinched at his question and glared at him, he gestured for her to calm down, "I'm just asking, that looks like an advanced slave seal with different levels of complexity. Does it hurt?" she hesitated but still nodded, from what she read of his performance in the academy he was a genius and she would sleep with the devil himself to remove the accursed seal. He stroked his chin and nodded "I thought so, who put it on you, better question is why you haven't removed it?"

"My former sensei," she spat out, "put this seal on me, he said it was an experimental seal." Naruto blinked at that, he briefly contemplated that she was somehow bi-polar but thrust that out of the window; he scratched his cheek and hummed. He moved forward and made to touch it but paused, he looked at her and raised an eyebrow for permission, she shrugged and nodded, and he put his pointer finger on the seal and traced it. He then brought out his sketch pad and started riffling through it hurriedly and stopped at a page. He compared the seal on her neck to the one on the paper; he shook his head in exasperation.

"Your sensei was Orochimaru of the Sannin?" Anko clenched her fists but still nodded tightly, he looked down at the seal on the paper and turned a new page and wrote down something, "I saw a variation of the seal on your neck on some animals, they were tormented by the pain it caused. You seem to be the first human experiment he had because there are two more layers of kanji to the two I saw on those animals, what I don't understand is why Jiraiya hasn't removed it yet." She silently looked at him, a total opposite of her former behaviour, and shrugged resignedly, "it can't be removed huh? That's the thing about these sorts of seals, they can't be removed by another person besides the seal master that gave you but they can be altered," she looked at him hopefully but he shook his head, "I can't do it, not now anyways. The other seals I saw are very different from the one you have on, those ones I could just overload them with my chakra and they'd break because they were crude and unfinished. But I can't overload yours, Anko-san, it might kill you and I need to study it before I can alter it, I may not be a seal master like Jiraiya or my kaa-sama but I know for sure I can make one of my unique seals to alter it."

"One of your 'unique seals', what do you mean?"

He sat back down on the bench and removed a scroll from one of his many pants pockets, "I'm only telling you this because I like challenges and that seal on your neck is a challenge, with your permission I can alter it but with time. Now to what I mean by my unique seals. When Sarutobi-oji-sama gave me my first book on fuinjutsu I studied it thoroughly, he said I was a natural in it, but there were some seals I saw that I knew could somehow be…improved." She nodded. She relaxed into the chair, actually listening to what he was saying. He pointed at a seal, "this is a standard storage seal, correct." She nodded affirmatively again, he then pointed to another seal but this one was a bit bigger than the last and the kanji were the same but a few more strokes were added and removed, "this is one of my unique seals, I call it 'the infinite storage seal' or 'the black hole'. This storage seal cannot be overloaded, you can basically keep a _person_ in here, alive and all, without it filling up." Her eyes widened at the implications if the boy ever chose to sell it. "I have more but I don't trust you enough to show you."

"…don't sweat it." She murmured. She quietly watched as he rolled up the scroll and put it back in his pocket, he took out his sketch pad and read over what he had in it. She cleared her throat "so, you can't get this disgusting thing off my neck but you can change it. What do you plan on changing it to?"

He kept reading as if he didn't hear her question, she was about to repeat it but stopped when he finally opened his mouth, "there is nature chakra in that seal, so I'll see if there's a way to place a seal on it and somewhere on the ground to transfer it there when it builds up, hopefully painlessly or better yet find a way to convert it to your chakra, I can add a glamour seal to make it disappear along with the bite holes if you want. There is a master/slave binding seal on it that I can remove, that would be ridiculously painful and I'll need a drop of Orochimaru's blood. If I get any other ideas I'll let you know." He unsealed a book from his left wrist and hunched over it. Anko knew that if she tried reading it she would instantly get dizzy so she stayed silent. The budding seal master then froze for a full minute before he formed a fire clone, gave him a small scroll and said "start immediately, you have enough chakra." The clone saluted and raced off.

' _He is the strangest 8 year old I have ever seen.'_ She shook her head and looked at the sun and stood up and stretched. He looked up at her curiously "well, brat," she ignored the twitch on his eyebrow "you know where to find me. See you whenever." She waved and walked off, barely containing the glee in her that wanted her to skip off into the sunset.

Naruto cracked his neck and looked down at the seal-in-development in his hands. _'I guess this is challenge accepted.'_

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

The next day he received a status report from his developing spy network through an annoying dark green parrot that had somehow made it into the workshop. He instructed the animal to wait until he was ready to respond, he fed the loud creature and left the room with shin yu. The letter was in his pocket and he held onto Shin yu's hand as they walked through konoha's market district. He had a week before he had to report back to the academy he had decided to spend the day with his sister and his best friend. They walked through the market district on the way to the Kage's mansion.

He planned on introducing shin to Mito and hopefully they would become friends. When he finally got there and the door was opened the plan exploded in his face in a glorious display of fire.

"Who are you?" Naruto's younger twin snarled as she grasped Naruto's other arm and pulled him towards her, "and why are you touching him?"

"My name is shin yu and I can touch whoever I want to touch, hag" the girl responded and pulled Naruto back while the boy just stood there watching them growl at each other.

"Who are you calling hag, kid, I'm his twin!"

The other girl snorted loudly, Naruto raised both eyebrows in disbelief. He wanted to point out how funny that sounded but he wanted to see how this drama would unfold even more, it might even give him an idea for a puppet, who knows? "I can see that he got all the looks, _hag_!" she gave Naruto a tug and glared icily at the twin girl that held onto his other arm tightly. "Let go of him."

"No you let go!" she took to hugging his whole arm and looking at Naruto pleadingly, "Naruto-nii-san tell this…girl to let go of you."

"Ugh…" it was one of those days that he was glad he wore his glasses, because the look she was giving him made him want to laugh, cry and stuff her into his coat pocket. He did not like feeling weak but this girl somehow kept making him feel weak. He tore his eyes away from her and looked at the other girl, who now snuggled into his other side, looking up at him with an equally pitiful gaze. "Ugh…"

"Naruto-san I don't want to be here, she's making me uncomfortable. Let's go play in the park."

"Ugh…"

"Play in the park? Ha! _My_ nii-san is going to help me train, aren't you Naruto-nii-san."

"As if! He's my best friend and he'd choose me over you!"

Mito gasped; horrified and looked at the boy she was holding onto-who was sweating bullets-in disbelief before she looked back at the smaller girl. "That's a lie, I'm his imouto and I'm his best friend! Tell her Naruto!" the boy finally got a hold of his fear and pulled both girls into a head lock, shin was a bit more difficult but she was still taller than the average 5 year old and walked into the house. They struggled futilely, shin yu even took to kicking his shins but he dragged them to the parlour and dumped them on the chair. They glared at him but gave up when he just looked at them blankly; they huffed in unison and faced the opposite directions.

He took a seat in front of them and grinned, "Mito-chan, how are you." The girl blushed but still refused to answer him. Near the stair case stood Kushina, watching the children with a small smile on her face. It was obvious how Mito felt about her brother and she didn't know what to think about it, _'I'll cross that bridge when I get there.'_

Back to the children, Naruto looked at the other girl who was sneaking looks at him but looked away with another huff when he grinned at her, "I thought you wanted a friend, Shin-chan?"

"Yeah I wanted a friend, but not her and I'm not talking to you."

The blonde genius quickly scanned his mind for any book he read about this sort of situations because for the life of him he did not anticipate this, alas he came up blank. So he did what his gut told him to do, nothing. His grin still in place he brought out his sketch pad and reclined on the chair. "That's alright but you two won't leave here until you talk to each other," shin turned and was about to verbally attack the other girl, who did likewise, but Naruto raised his hands "pleasantly."

"Whatever" they both said at the same time, they decided mentally that they would not leave Naruto alone with the other _'who knows what she'll do with him.'_ Naruto looked back at the seal drawn in the pad and unsealed a book, he nodded and began scribbling down and underlining words from the book. The girls watched him silently as he worked on what he was doing, they were sure that what he was doing involved either seals or puppets, the clue that gave him away was the book he was reading. Shin yu scratched her right shoulder as a memory hit her. That was where Naruto placed the seal that could contain her were wolf aspect, it allowed her to access its powers even though it was not on a full moon but still stay relatively human, though she was still stronger during full moons. It stored away the chemicals that made her transform into the seal that filtered it through seven different layers of seals, he told her that he was inspired by the seal that his sister, _'that hag'_ had on her to contain the Kyuubi and allow her access to its chakra. It turned out that he didn't need drugs when seals could easily replace it, the chemicals were produced every day until it was all released and she transformed, that meant that she had enough of it to last her for 2 days straight of fighting; since it worked as a sort of…high, the good thing was that it allowed her to keep her sanity and control. The seal was also good; she could not use her chakra, she only had the barest minimum to allow her to stay alive, the girl was sure that performing in the academy would be difficult. Naruto looked at her and smiled, she smiled back before she scowled and looked away, and he chuckled quietly at this.

Kushina walked into the kitchen and started preparing lunch, she still kept an open ear for any arguing…which happened 5 seconds later.

"Why are you smiling at him?! Don't smile at him!" the jinchuriki yelled. She jumped on the smaller girl and began shaking her shoulders. Shin pushed her off with both her feet and snarled.

"That is none of your business. I smiled at him because he's cool, hag!" she channelled some of her were wolf powers and elongated her fangs and claws, her shadow rippled and morphed into a hulking beast to show that she was channelling her inner were wolf. Mito in turn unconsciously tapped into the Kyuubi's chakra, Naruto sat at the side-lines, debating whether or not he should intervene, he did so when they lunged at each other. He sealessly made a clone and had it wrap grab Mito and wrap her in standard chakra suppression seals while the real Naruto merged some of his strings into a chakra arm and used it to grab the cursed girl. They were both comically foaming at the mouth and growling at each other.

"I am not a hag! I'm his _twin_ , idiot! My nii-san and I were born on the same day! Get that through your head!" Mito screamed as she kept pumping more and more of the chakra and burning through the suppressors, Naruto's eyes widened, he didn't know that was even possible. Before the suppressors could finish burning he slapped on his own unique suppression seals at the middle of her back and watched satisfied as wrought iron chain held onto the feral girl tightly, it was being powered by the Kyuubi's chakra. "Let me go, let me go!"

Naruto's clone held onto the girl tightly slightly burned from the vile chakra, the only one that he had seen that was more vile than his own besides the unstable nature chakra in the cursed seal. He looked at his 'boss' who had fewer problems. Shin yu struggled against the dense chakra arm that held onto her, she looked at the blonde who lifted his glasses and kept them in his hair, and growled. Her shadow, that looked like a full on were wolf, swiped at the hand but it clanged against it. It made to jump at him, but couldn't disconnect from her body. Naruto blinked curiously, _'that's new.'_ He heard a gasp and looked towards the sound and saw his mother looking at him wide eyed, he blinked again, _'I didn't hear her coming?'_ he bowed to her and looked back at the two girls, Mito had calmed down significantly but her eyes kept changing from her natural blue to Kyuubi red and back again, shin yu knelt on the ground with her head bowed. "I actually thought this was a good idea, introducing my best friend to my sister who is also my best friend, but I see that I made a mistake." He looked at his sister who couldn't meet his gaze and shin that was still bowed, "I am very disappointed in you two." He ignored their simultaneous gasps and continued, "I will leave you two here to clean up the mess you made, come and find me if you finish." They looked around and were surprised to find a hole in the ceiling, the chair they sat on torn was in half and the carpet scratched and burned up.

He nodded to his clone and he removed the seal on her back and let her go gently, the chains unravelled from around her and snaked back into the seal. The real Naruto let his chakra disperse from around the other girl. He picked up his sketch pad and book on sealing and made to go out but froze when he saw his wide eyed father standing at the door with ANBU ninja behind him, he sighed mentally, _'now I'll have to explain who shin yu is. Perfect.'_ He looked back at the two girls who still hadn't moved before he looked back towards his father and cocked his head to the side that he was still staring at him, he shrugged and walked past him and his ninja and made his way to the library.

"Naruto…" the boy paused, waiting for his father to finish what he wanted to say, "stay for dinner I have something to ask you."

"Hai Tou-sama." The man's son responded and he left for his destination.

In the Kage's mansion it was still ghostly silent, Minato numbly waved to his ANBU to go back to their duties and he looked at his wife. She stared back at him. "He can hold down a jinchuriki?"

"…obviously." She said. She walked up to him, still looking at the carnage that happened in the parlour and the two children that stood in the middle.

"He also knows fuinjutsu." He murmured and looked at the second girl who now stood up and was silently channelling her inner were wolfs strength to put the chairs back together, needless to say it wasn't working. "You can leave that for now. What's your name?"

"Shin yu," she said sullenly and scuffed her feet, "I'm sorry for the mess sir, I couldn't control myself."

He nodded and waved her apology off, "what was that anyway, I haven't seen anything like that before." She shuffled around uncomfortably and mumbled something inaudibly. He moved over to her and knelt down so he was eye level with her. "Sorry I can't hear you."

"I-I am-was a were wolf."

After what he saw her do he would believe anything she said she was, he looked at Kushina who shrugged and said. "How do you know Naruto?"

She had been practising for this sort of scenario, well something like this scenario, so she knew what to say to him, hopefully he would believe her. "Naruto-san found me in the village's forest of death; he said I was an experiment for Orochimaru of the Sannin." She stepped away and bowed, "I am sorry for the mess sir, I won't cause any more trouble." She looked at the silent jinchuriki, "I apologise for calling you a…hag" she grumbled, cracking her neck uncomfortably, "I would like to be your friend but only because Naruto-san wanted me to."

"…me too" Mito answered, visibly swallowing her pride and raising her hands for a hand shake, "friends?"

Shin yu too the offered hand tightly-a little too tightly-and shook it firmly. She held in a growl when Mito didn't flinch in pain but squeezed back even harder. "For Naruto-nii-san."

"You can also stay for dinner if you want Shin yu." The older red head interrupted their impromptu strength contest. They let go of their hands but sent each other final glares, "why don't you two go find Naruto and see what he's doing."

"Hai kaa-chan!" Mito squealed and grabbed Shin yu's hand and dragged her to the library, "be back for lunch!"

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

In the library, Naruto waved at the old librarian and walked to his usual reading seat, at the back. When he was settled he unsealed two books on sealing, his scroll with his unique seals and his sketch pad. He was rummaging through his pockets for a pen but found the spy report letter, he planned on reading it in the evening but shrugged, why not now.

He brought out a spare sheet of paper and cracked the code on the report, it read:

 _Nothing too important report, sensei. All others settled in countries. Some in ninja schools, some already ninja. Besides scarps. He was poisoned by an Iwa student. Nothing serious. Bird._

After he finished reading it he channelled his chakra into the paper and it melted into green goo onto the floor and solidified before it broke up into dust, it was always interesting to watch what he could do with his chakra. He did not expect any important report for at least the next five years but it would still do to read them. He opened the seal he had been breaking down since the day before, the day he met Anko. He had seen the seal plenty of times on both animals and some of the street kids he brought in and taught, theirs were less advance than hers and that was what he didn't understand. Anko's curse seal should be the first type administered onto a human so that means hers should be the most basic or easiest to crack but he was finding it harder by the minute, while some of his spies had crude if not half-heartedly made curse seals on their necks. It was like Orochimaru really wanted to give his student the curse seal as a gift but it failed or…there was something amiss with Anko's story.

He pushed the speculation from his mind and zeroed in on the cursed seal. The ones he saw only had two levels of complexity: nature chakra producing/conducting (that was too defective and made unstable chakra) and a fail-safe seal so the snake Sannin could kill the person before he could turn on him which he never used as far as he knew. The seal on Anko had four levels of complexity: a master/slave seal that binded her to the rogue Sannin, a nature chakra producing/conducting seal that was also defective, a punishment seal which was defective because if the containment seal around the curse seal was to be removed she would immediately be put in excruciating pain and finally a brain wash seal (he assumed it was) that didn't work at all. But no fail safe seal. Curious and suspicious.

He felt his sister and Shin yu sit on both his sides and look over his shoulder. He ignored them and kept drawing kanji over kanji and stacking them over themselves to see if they were compatible, so far he got two: his unique blank mind seal that would in theory prevent Orochimaru from 'feeling' Anko's presence and his chakra transfer seal that he used for his students, it took the nature chakra being produce and transferred it into the ground like a lightening conductor. He wanted to see if there was a way to stabilize the nature chakra so Anko could use it if possible. It was all a big puzzle really.

"Nii-san?" Mito asked tentatively, Naruto hummed in answer "what are you doing?" the answer was obvious from the paper scattered over the table but she just felt like talking.

"Helping a comrade with her sealing problem."

"Uhm, ok but do-do you have time to help me with something?"

"It depends on what it is and how expensive, Mito-chan."

"I need help with my training; can you be my sparring partner?" She immediately noticed her brothers wide smirk and blinked.

"I'll do something better." He sealed back his books and put his sketch pad back in his pocket and stood up, he motioned to the silent second girl "why don't you spar with Shin-chan?"

The jinchuriki glared darkly at the other girl who glared back, "your right, nii-san, c'mon _Shin yu_ lets go and spar."

They walked to the training ground almost too quickly and Naruto had to dodge a thrown kunai by jumping onto a tree branch. He reclined on the branch and watched the spar, hoping no one would die today.

Shin yu swiped at the thrown weapon and ducked away from the following barrage of shuriken. She crouched on all fours and charged a bit of her inner were wolf into her body, not enough to change her shadow, but enough to elongate her fangs, claws and darken her eyes. Mito took her family's stance with a kunai in each hand, Naruto nodded approvingly, and she ran at the crouched girl. Shin had no particular fighting style so she fought on instinct. Despite having the power and strength, she didn't have the skill or technique to make her very effective. Mito feint swiped her neck but rolled away when Shin bent back and kicked at her with her clawed feet, she puffed out some air and ran at the girl again. This time Shin led the strike with a clawed hand and a kick to the stomach, Mito side stepped the kick narrowly and used the base of the kunai to jab at the outstretched leg, she the kicked Shins feet from beneath her and gave a left hook to her cheek. The blow sent the inexperienced girl half way across the field. Mito looked at where her brother sat, grinned and raised a thumb up, Naruto face palmed. With a burst of pure primal and uncontrolled speed, Shin barrelled into the red haired girl and started decking her anywhere her hands could reach. Mito luckily kicked her off and threw her kunai at the airborne girl. She swiped the kunai and landed on the ground lightly, she glared at the jinchuriki whose wounds have already closed up and chose to do a move she hadn't perfected or practised in weeks. She charged a bit more of her wolf powers and spun on the balls of her feet, arms outstretched in hopes of forming a tornado with claws. The dust around her picked up and swirled around her lightly but the move failed horribly when the older girl kicked her out before she could gain even more speed, Mito put her right knee on her chest and held a kunai to the downed girls neck.

"Give up," she said, and she caught the quick look Shin yu sent to her brother. The girl nodded and Mito stood up. Naruto nodded and smiled at them, "how did I do nii-san?"

He stayed on the branch, "you did well, you too Shin-chan. Try not to get distracted Mito-chan and Shin-chan don't over depend on your wolf powers, besides that you did well, try doing some strength training." The girls beamed at him, "start with 30 laps around the training ground, 30 push ups, 30 sit ups and 30 other exercises I think of."

"Nii-san!"

"Did I hear you say I should multiply it… by three?" Shin kicked the other girl to keep her shut and ran around the field, "and remember, no matter what I do, I can still see you!"

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

"Would you like some more ramen, Sochi-kun?" Kushina asked the boy from across her at the family's dining table. He shook his head and went back to eating his food. He liked ramen, very, _very_ much but right now it didn't taste too well in his mouth but he powered through.

"So Naruto," Minato said, he observed the boy who looked back at him, "I saw how you held down your sister today, I'm very surprised and very impressed, how did you do it?"

"I used a seal Tou-sama." He answered plainly

"Can I see it?" Naruto nodded and removed a piece of paper he kept in his pants pocket. His unique seal scroll was in his hooded coat that he had on his lap, he passed the seal to his father. The man hummed and nodded, "this is excellent, how did you come up with it?"

"I swapped some kanji and added a word."

The man beamed at his son and looked at his wife who also smiled at him, his smile decreased when frowned and Naruto went back to picking at his food, "how do you know so much about fuinjutsu because I don't remember teaching you, Naruto and that chakra you used to hold down Shin yu was obviously not normal." He passed the drawn seal back to the other seal master near him.

"Sarutobi-oji-sama taught me, when he couldn't teach me again he recommended some books that he couldn't get to." He took some food into his mouth and continued "my chakra is not normal, it is denser than most. Maybe I inherited it from kaa-sama."  
"Why didn't you ask us to teach you?" Kushina asked,

Naruto looked at her and shrugged "I did but you said there wasn't any time." He went back to picking his food.

"Don't worry son, that'll change. We can start with your training first thing tomorrow."

"I'm not worried Tou-sama, I'm fine training with Sarutobi-oji-sama and Shibi-sensei."

"We insist Sochi-kun."

The blonde genius was silent before he asked "what brought this up?"

His parents looked at each other; Minato furrowed his brows and asked "what do you mean?"

Naruto spoke with his hand clenched under the table, "I mean was it because I held down Mito-chan with a unique seal or was it because I graduated early with the highest grades?" his face was the picture of serenity with the slightest hint of pure childish curiosity, "you never had time for me before, why start now?"

The other spectators at the table, namely Jiraiya, Tsunade, Mito and Shin stopped eating and watched the drama unfold.

"I'm sure that's not true, Naruto." The slug Sannin piped in.

He looked at her and cocked his head to the side, "how would you know that?"

She clenched her teeth "I am also part of this family, brat."

Naruto blinked and nodded, he looked back at his parents and raised his eyebrows. He was honestly proud of himself, he had not attacked them yet nor did he feel like it, he just felt tired…and disappointed. Minato silently asked for the seal from Jiraiya and gave it back to Naruto, "so Tou-sama, what brought this up?"

The older male blonde scratched his chin nervously, "your very skilled for your age, Naruto, we would like to refine it." He watched the boy roll his eyes "if this is about your birthday or that Mito is the clan heir: your holding onto it for too long, just let it go."

The boy rubbed his eyes and breathed in deeply, "this isn't about my birthday or about being the clan heir, this is about the fact that for four years I had to wake up and make my own breakfast which meant that I had to learn how to cook when I was four, watch you train Mito and wave me away when I asked for advice on my own training, I had to ask people who knew me to help me train." He smirked faintly "do you know how badly I wanted to prove my worth to you, Tou-sama that I could also do something to make you look at me. Now that you see me, I just don't feel…satisfied, because _you only saw me after I made a seal and seeing my grades."_ The boy growled the last part before he took a deep breath and chuckled hollowly "I'm as 'excellent' as I am from getting help from others and most importantly myself. I can't deny being glad you two see me again, after four years that is, I can't emphasize that enough." He smiled at them and stood up, "I'm not hungry anymore, good night." He wore his coat and looked at Shin who also stood up, he nodded to the door and she walked to it.

"Can't you ever forgive us, Sochi-kun?" His mother pleaded, tears cascading from her eyes and a hand clenching her heart. "I promise, I-I'll make it right, please just come back home." Minato bowed his head in disappointment, Naruto was right; he only noticed him because of his accomplishments as small as they were (to them) but he'd be damned if he wouldn't try and bring his son back home.

He shrugged tiredly and answered with his voice and face even "I don't know. If I ever will it wouldn't be soon, but right now I honestly can't trust you two." His words were like electrified daggers to the heart; he looked at Mito and smiled gently "good night, imouto." He bowed to the others and walked off into the night holding Shin yu's hand.

 **Authors note**

 **I know Anko is a bit OOC here but whatever.**

 **There you have it. Opinions and questions?**

 **Review.**

 **B.j.**


	9. Chapter 9

Yo! Warning blood, gore and torture up ahead, it was necessary.

Thank you for your reviews!

 **Last time on: Greatness:**

…"My name's Nobu Tsukabi."

…

…"so Tou-sama, what brought this up?"

The older male blonde scratched his chin nervously, "your very skilled for your age, Naruto, we would like to refine it." He watched the boy roll his eyes "if this is about your birthday or that Mito is the clan heir: your holding onto it for too long, just let it go."

The boy rubbed his eyes and breathed in deeply, "this isn't about my birthday or about being the clan heir, this is about the fact that for four years I had to wake up and make my own breakfast which meant that I had to learn how to cook when I was four, watch you train Mito and wave me away when I asked for advice on my own training, I had to ask people who knew me to help me train." He smirked faintly "do you know how badly I wanted to prove my worth to you, Tou-sama that I could also do something to make you look at me. Now that you see me, I just don't feel…satisfied, because you only saw me after I made a seal and seeing my grades." The boy growled the last part before he took a deep breath and chuckled hollowly "I'm as 'excellent' as I am from getting help from others and most importantly myself. I can't deny being glad you two see me again, after four years that is, I can't emphasize that enough." He smiled at them and stood up, "I'm not hungry anymore, good night." He wore his coat and looked at Shin who also stood up, he nodded to the door and she walked to it.

"Can't you ever forgive us, Sochi-kun?" His mother pleaded, tears cascading from her eyes and a hand clenching her heart. "I promise, I-I'll make it right, please just come back home." Minato bowed his head in disappointment, Naruto was right; he only noticed him because of his accomplishments as small as they were (to them) but he'd be damned if he wouldn't try and bring his son back home.

He shrugged tiredly and answered with his voice and face even "I don't know. If I ever will it wouldn't be soon, but right now I honestly can't trust you two." His words were like electrified daggers to the heart; he looked at Mito and smiled gently "good night, imouto." He bowed to the others and walked off into the night holding Shin yu's hand.

 **Now…**

CHAPTER 9

"There has been a change of plans; master needs his body by the end of the weekend."

The sun was barely up yet but there were two figures that sat at the table in a room only lit by a single candle. One had dark brown almost black eyes, the other had his eyes hidden under his hair. It was the first person that spoke, his voice was smooth and a bit deep, a teenager. The second person shifted slightly and his hidden eyes gazed into the candle, he was the youngest of the pair.

The first person spoke again, "do you think you'd be able to get it done?"

Nobu looked up from the candle and the light illuminated his face, he nodded, "this is really inconvenient, Kabuto, I intentionally started at the academy late but had to follow him to write my exams early as well but I'm sure he didn't know me or that I got second place in the exams ranking." He looked back at the candle and continued, "I just needed another year to gain his trust, or part of it. What changed the plans?"

"Orochimaru-sama sent me a message that he was grievously injured by Uchiha Itachi, his body is rejecting him. He predicted it would happen within a month so he wants Naruto's body." The snake Sannin had a plethora of other people that would gladly give up their body's for the man, Kabuto and Nobu included, but he wanted Naruto's body specifically as a middle finger to the person that 'stole' his ambition to become Kage from him. "Would you be able to do it, Nobu-kun?"

The blue haired boy leaned back in his chair and grinned, showing serrated teeth and a reptilian tongue poking out every once in a while, something he had to suppress during the day so as not to bring attention to himself. "Naruto may be strong for his age but I'm stronger."

"Don't get cocky, don't underestimate him." Kabuto whispered fiercely, the other boy just scoffed and picked his nails. He sighed and rubbed his face "do you have a plan?"

Nobu's grin widened abnormally, the genjutsu hiding the corners of his extended mouth dispelling leaving him with a true Cheshire grin. Since Kabuto knew the boy well enough he didn't flinch "the boy loves his sister," was all he said.

The older boy stood up and walked to the rooms only door, he looked over his shoulder and said, "Don't do something stupid, Nobu-kun." And he walked out. His warning echoed in the blue haired boys head before he shook it and fixed back the genjutsu. For a second he second thought his plan.

"I will not fail you Orochimaru-sama, besides," he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck tenderly where the almost complete curse seal of heaven was "what could a kid like him do to me…"

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

It was noon when Naruto got the kidnap letter.

It was supposed to be a happy day because he had cracked the cursed seal, created alter seals for it and had at the same time got a seal from one of the alter seals complexities that could shrink his python puppet. The only sign he showed that he was both angry and panicking was his quivering hands. He had finally mastered his fire clones so he summoned 50 of them and had them scour the whole of Konoha. He himself checked with all his friends and Mito's friends whether they knew where she was, he got nothing. Shin yu, seeing how frantic her best friend was set aside her differences with the girl and helped search; nobody besides them noticed her disappearance. The last clone exploded in suppressed fire confirming what the letter had told him. His vivid imagination was running a mile a minute, imagining what the kidnaper or kidnappers were doing to his sister, he cursed himself for reading all those mystery and crime novels. He paced around the workshop impatiently, waiting for sunset to reach. The cursed girl watched him worriedly, wondering how she could calm the boy down but came out with blanks.

Naruto mentally took inventory. He had his spider puppet sealed in his wrist, he had not gotten to upgrading it; he planned to do so today. He had his fixed and improved mummy puppet, he covered the puppet with seals similar to the one he had in Chou's mouth so when it caught someone it could constantly be draining him until he turned it off, but he knew for sure he couldn't use it on jinchuriki; they would over load the seal. His black hole puppet was sealed in his other wrist with his unchanged tank puppet and his python puppet. Senbon launchers on his wrists filled with paralytic senbon, he intended to keep the _fool_ alive so he could find out who sent him, explosive tags in his pockets, ordinary kunai and shuriken also in his pockets, ninja wire stored in scrolls, knock out gas and poison in syringes also stored in scrolls. Finally, he had his obsidian scythe stored in a blood seal in the palm of his hands, the blonde had not mastered it but knew with certainty that he could hold his own against a weapons expert for a while at least. He occasionally sealed and unsealed it, giving it test swings with the deadly weapon coated in his chakra. The material used to make the weapon was meant to be inaccessible to anyone not a member of demon village but money could do a lot of things, buying the inaccessible was one of them.

Sunset. He looked at shin yu and non-verbally told her not to follow, he almost caved from the look she was giving him but he stayed strong, "I'll be back." He walked outside, nodding at the owner of the shop. He stopped in front of training ground 44 and went through some hand seals, _'summoning jutsu!'_ In a puff of smoke a scorpion half his size stood before him.

"You finally called huh?" the deadly creature hissed, it was male and it was angry. It raised his tail high to intimidate the boy but wavered from the glare it was given.

"This is an emergency."

 _Flashback_

 **Two months after hearing the clones report**

"I will be honoured to be your summoner, Mara-sama" the boy said to the easily intimidating but beautiful woman, "but I may only do so on emergencies." They stood in the workshop opposite on another, staring at each other. The queen had a small smirk infuriatingly plastered on her face but it was understandable with the boy being obviously flustered if his red face was anything to go by.

"Why so?" she said innocently, blinking slowly and stepping forward. She ran her hands through his hair and grinned widely at the gulp the boy took, _'awww…'_ "My clan don't normally take summoners from outside. You don't want us?"

"N-n-no! Of course I want you! I mean I want your clan! But why-why call you guys if I could do something on my own." He swallowed thickly and closed his eyes, avoiding the small pout the older woman had, she kept stroking his head "but-but I can call your clan if I can't do something like-like tracking!" the boys expressionless face broke bit by bit with each flustered word that came out of his mouth.

"Tracking? We aren't good at tracking _Naruto-kun_ " a small part of her conscience scolded her for doing this to him, but the rest of it _'kawaii'd_. _'_ How she wished she could just take him back with her to her clan base and turn him into her immortal plushie, her last one was a bit…eaten, _'poor Tsume, but she did taste good, I wonder if he tastes good too…'_ she sniffed him quickly and licked her lips _'a bit bland but spices can do wonders…focus!'_

The boy was too focused on the fact that his first and a half crush was touching him to care what else she did, Konan was the half crush because she kept constantly touching him, it was a bit off putting. "Hai, in places your clan is familiar with like the desert or the forest of death or I can send some of your spiders as messengers, I need messengers!" the woman patted his head to calm him down, if the way his clone behaved was how he normally did when he felt threatened then the way he was hyperventilating was not normal. She wanted the cool Naruto.

"Calm down Naruto-kun, we will respect your decision." She gave his head a last pat and stepped back. "Be cool ok."

He rubbed his hand on his face and did exactly that, his face became stoic but still tinted red when he removed his hands, "ok Mara-sama."

"That's good and none of this -Sama, call me -chan or whatever but not -san." She said. The only thing running through Naruto's mind was why it had to be his boss summons he had a crush on. His terrifying, hot and intimidating boss summons. Why not Tsunade or Yugao or even a younger girl. "But I'll keep visiting, which I promise, not regularly but whenever I want." Naruto nodded, it would take a lot of getting used to but it was still good with him. "See you later." She waved and poof away.

He stood where he was for a full half hour, taking breathing exercises _'why didn't my clone find her attractive, I need to read into this.'_ He looked at where he heard snickering and glared, "…shut up, Shin-chan."

"Naruto-san has a crush! That's so cute!" the 5 year old girl gushed, giggling in her section of the work shop. It wasn't every day that her best friend broke character or even panicked under pressure, he was normally cool. She may be a bit too young to know what a crush was or how to spot one but she had a lot of free time on her hands to read the few romance novels Naruto had with him. She giggled harder when he turned even redder, "I will never forget this day! Oh I can't breathe!" she grabbed her small belly and rolled on the ground.

This was a day to remember.

 _Flashback end_

The scorpion stepped back, "what happened?"

Naruto ignored his question and asked, "You are familiar with this forest, right?"

"Of course, I have a family here."

"Find any human disturbance from the last 24 hours and trace it, quickly if you can."

"Hop on, I can see and 'smell' one now." Naruto raised an eye brow at the last part but still jumped onto the goliath creatures back. It crouched lower onto the ground then it lunged sharply into the dense forest, the trees flew by and the passenger kept his eyes and ears open.

"don't get too close, I want the person to feel as if I came alone so stay hidden if anything goes wrong." Despite him whispering it the creature heard him and hissed affirmatively. The scorpion stopped and used his tail to point at a random looking clump of trees, Naruto nodded and climbed down nimbly, he silently told him to keep his eyes and ears open, and then the scorpion disappeared into the bushes. Naruto cracked his neck and stealthily stalked into the forest, quiet as a mouse's shadow, he arrived at where he was pointed to and found his unconscious sister hanging from a tree wrapped in ninja wire, he growled menacingly.

"Took you long enough," a disembodied voice said from above him, he looked up but had to roll out of the way when a claw like kunai impaled where he stood, it dripped with a grey substance. "Good reflexes, better hearing but I still need to take you back to my master."

"Come and take me then," Naruto called out, "I dare you."

"Brave last words coming from a kid, kid. But believe me when I say that I'm out of your league." The person jumped down from where he hide and from the little light the sun allowed he could see that the persons eyes was covered by his hair, blue hair.

"Nobu?" the blonde said blandly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. It should be with the boy 'hanging out' with him every time he saw him. He was at least glad he didn't trust the boy in the first place "who is your master, Nobu?" the blue haired boy grinned his abnormal grin and Naruto sighed "Orochimaru…"

"Ding, ding, ding! Got it on one!" he clapped, "now be a good boy and pass out for me" he pointed at the blonde and the same claw like kunai ripped out, Naruto jumped away and formed a clone "I saw your spider tattoo, Naruto, and I have a friend back home that would be glad to rip it off."

Naruto did not respond to the threat but signalled at his sister and the clone took her down and ran out of the forest with her. All the while Naruto kept his eyes on his opponent, fixing his glasses and half mask, his face stoic and his body taking his taijutsu stance.

"I warned you, Naruto." He took his own unfamiliar stance and ran to the other boy. Naruto was faster though. He snapped a right hook to his face and a savage kick to his stomach. He didn't let up, he axe kicked the fool into the ground and kicked him away…into a tree, Naruto cocked his head to the side; wondering whether all the boys boastings were just words he couldn't back up, that couldn't be it. He threw a kunai wrapped in an explosive tag at the boy and detonated it before it could thunk into the wood. He waited for the smoke to clear and when it did he suppressed the urge to hurl. The boy was hanging of the tree with his limbs in strange angles, organs all over the tree trunk and his skin discoloured, he thought his first kill would be…cleaner. The 'dead' boys snapped his eyes open and the organs slithered back into him, his arms snapped back into place and his skin turned back to their normal colour. "You're much stronger than I anticipated, I can finally use this seal now." He grinned and his tongue stuck into the air, his mouth elongated making his already serrated teeth more intimidating, his claws grew and his blue hair receded. His skin had irregular patches of grey scales on it. He fell onto a crouch on all fours and licked his teeth, "try and beat me now, Naruto."

Naruto was worried about the chakra spike and estimated 20 minutes before the village's ninja could track them. He cracked his knuckles, enough time. He used the five second break to examine his opponent, the cursed seal didn't allow the person to die from external wounds so his only shot would be to give him an internal wound, _'poisons it is. '_ He ran at Nobu at the same time he ran at him and they smashed fists in the centre, he ducked from a claw and raised his right leg away from another, he the bent back again from a claw, kicked Nobu's knees back flipped and used the flip to kick his chin. He tucked and rolled away and ran back in. He punched and countered expertly, he elbowed the man-reptile in the gut and stabbed a senbon in his leg but the weapon broke.

Nobu punched Naruto's belly and clawed his face but the 'Naruto' exploded in a small ball of fire. He looked just in time to swipe his claws at some hurled shuriken, "come on out Naruto. I won't bite." He got his wish when he was tied up in green thread and Naruto jumped out from a tree, pumped his left arm with his chakra and punched the inexperienced boy back into the tree, a poisoned kunai that had come out from nowhere sticking from his stomach. The blonde genius could have pumped his chakra into his opponent but he didn't know if it was stronger than nature chakra, albeit unstable one. The boy obviously was not too familiar with his body or his power; in the right hands he could have been formidable. He then resolved to himself, _'you'll be my first human puppet, Nobu.'_ He used a kunai to deflect a claw kunai and jumped away when the boy smashed his fist into his former position.

Nobu was agitated; he was frothing from his mouth and his blue eyes narrowed, he was losing himself to his cursed seal.

' _This isn't going as smoothly as I planned, he's too strong.'_ He snarled at Naruto and removed the weapon before he chuckled hollowly, "that was good, but-but…" he hunched over and coughed out a glob of blood from his mouth, he fell on his knees and held where Naruto punched him with the kunai, he looked at the bruise/hole that was turning greener by the second. "What did you do to me?" he stammered fearfully.

"I poisoned you," he answered, _'finally…'_ Nobu fell down and turned on his back, the chakra from his cursed seal receding back turning his body back to normal albeit his clothes were torn and his sandals were a lost cause. The boy's body shook violently for a full 30 seconds before he stayed limp with blood bubbling out of his mouth, dead. The clearing was silent, "I can hear you breathing Anko." Said woman jumped down and walked to the boy cautiously, she watched him seal the dead body into a scroll and look at her curiously. She at least expected him to be a little bit winded but he did not even look ruffled, which meant he either inherited his mothers beastly stamina or he had trained himself to get used to this _or_ he could hide it very well.

"Nice fight, brat." She said. He nodded to her and removed a scroll from one of his pockets. He gave her a small smile and her eyes widened. "Already?" he nodded again.

"Are you the only one that came?"

"Yeah, I run this place ya know!" she couldn't contain herself. "When can we do it?"

"Right now if you want, you just have to trust me." She gave him a small glare but nodded, "take off your coat." She bared her teeth at him but he raised his hands defensively "I told you before that's not what lady's wear in public. Anyway I'm 8 year old genin and you're a special jounin, there is literally nothing I can do to you without your consent."

"The way you fought wasn't genin level kid, that's low jounin easy." She then took a deep breath and let her coat slither off her body, leaving her half naked. "Just get it over with."

Naruto didn't even blush. He unrolled the scroll and placed it on the ground "lie down please" she did so swiftly. He summoned four fire clones and made three pick a seal on the scroll and draw it exactly a centimetre below the cursed seal, he looked at his clones and they nodded, they clamped onto each of her limbs and held her down firmly. Naruto took out a special senbon and pricked her wrist, the weapon glowed light blue and the tip had a small drop of blood on it. He took a deep breath and pressed it into the new seal and removed it.

And Anko _screamed._

She thrashed and struggled but couldn't gain freedom. Black veins spread over her whole body from the cursed seal but the new seal seemed to unravel and wrap around, the kanji slipped and mixed with kanji for the cursed seal. The black veins flickered and turned dark blue until Naruto took the senbon and stabbed it into the ground near her head. A thin rope of dark blue chakra latched from the seals onto it and sank down into the ground (like a lightening conductor). The last bit of chakra sank into the ground and the veins lightened until they disappeared completely 10 minutes later. She stopped screaming almost abruptly and _moaned_. Her body quivered but he still held her down, he did not expect this reaction. He could even see the liquid leaving her lower half. He dispelled three clones and jumped away when she made to grab him, drool leaked from her lips.

She licked her lips and jumped on the clone. She humped the poor clone like a high and horny rabbit, ripped off his mask, licking his neck and kissing him deeply. She did this with so much fervour she could generate power with the orgasms that thundered through her. More and more quivers surged through her body, releasing her load on the innocent by standing clone. She panted and grinned at the clone that grinned back and was about rip off his clothes but slumped onto him unconscious; the real Naruto had pricked her with a quick-action senbon. He sighed in relief; he did not want to find out how being raped felt like but he couldn't keep the clone 'alive' forever. His clone grinned and gave him a thumbs up from where he lay. "This is going to be the best day in your 8 year old life, boss!"

The real blonde rolled his eyes, "cover her up, idiot."

"Hey! You're the idiot, boss!" his only response was to shake his head and sit on the ground. The scorpion that had helped him find the place skittered over to him and sat beside him. He was silent for a while. The clone dispelled before he spoke and Naruto's body shuddered strongly. The scorpion laughed loudly at his reaction from the memory back lash.

"That was awesome."

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

"Team 14: Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze, Ami and Sai. Sai is replacing Nobu Tsukabi who has not been seen in a while. Sai is younger ninja that went through private training…" the round sensei explained, Naruto shrugged his shoulders "your sensei would be Mitarashi Anko."

"Of course she's my sensei" he muttered sourly. He still had flash backs from that day, yesterday. He couldn't sleep or he would dream of the experience so he took his tools and went into the forest to upgrade his python puppet and his spider puppet. _'Thank kami for clones.'_ A normal person would take at least 3 months to do the modifications he did on his puppets. He unsealed the dead dragon and removed its scales, wings, fangs and eyes. He fixed the some of the scales on his snake puppet, they were large so he didn't need all of it and fixed some of the teeth into its mouth, keeping them hidden in the puppets 'gums', making sure to place a preservation seal on it. He attached the wings with a complicated set of wires and rods; he let the wings lay flat on its body so that it couldn't be seen. Lastly he fixed an eye on the snakes forehead connected to a preservation seal and a constant supply of the dragons blood so it would glow, he made some eye lids to hide it; it didn't really have any function, just for intimidation. When it shrunk down it looked like a gold and red _'ordinary'_ python, deception was a ninja's best weapon. For his spider puppet he carved a helmet out of the dead creatures tail bone, he glued three claws that he sharpened and drastically reduced the size onto it, he made optimum use of his strings by carving designs depicting death and gore around it. Satisfied with what had done he sealed them back and stared at the sky until sleep ran him over…an hour before sunrise.

So there he sat, shades in his hair and mask hanging off his neck, slumped over his desk, sleeping until the snake lady had to collect her team.

Just as the class sensei called the last team a black blur broke through the window and landed, two kunai shot out of it holding a banner that read: **THE SINGLE AND SEXY ANKO MITARASHI!**

Naruto was shaken awake by the commotion and watched as another blur landed in front of the banner and revealed itself to be a grinning Anko looking as revealing as ever. She scanned the seats before her eyes landed on Naruto who already had a senbon launcher pointed at her, his face set in stone. She made to walk forward but stopped when he raised his other hand with another senbon launcher wrapped on it. She licked her lips and gave him a finger wiggling wave, and his response was giving her a light sneer. The class watched this stand-off in total silence, holding their breaths, wondering who was going to jump at whom.

Anko smiled at the class and said "team 14, meet me in training ground 43." The way she said it was a stark contrast to how she entered, she spoke calmly but lightly. She walked out of the class room through the door but stopped, looked at Naruto and gave her lips a final lick before she disappeared.

Naruto gave a sigh in relief. Sure he could take her on well enough but he didn't want any witnesses. He walked out of the class with his future team mates, a pale boy that kept smiling at him and the girl that wanted to intimidate him on the day of the exam. They followed the woman with Naruto at a respectably far distance away from her and stopped in a training ground that was rockier than the normal training ground and with the land uneven. The older woman motioned for them to sit down, they did so on the ground but the woman remained standing. She closed her eyes, looking at peace with herself and the world around her; she then opened her eyes showing pupiless brown eyes and a small smile.

"First of all, introductions." She rubbed her hands together and looked at them waiting for someone to go first but they all remained silent with Ami wide eyed by her apparel and her drastic change of character. "No one? Then I'll go first. My name is Anko Mitarashi, special jounin of Konohagakure no Sato. I work in the Torture & Interrogation department. I like Dango, my few friends, torture, blood, sex and _Naruto-kun_ " she basically moaned his name out. Naruto's arm twitched when he heard her call his name, she blinked slowly and continued "I dislike idiots, perverts and traitors. My ambition or what I look forward to doing is killing my sensei and having eternal mind blowing sex with _Naruto-kun_ ," she moaned out his name again and blinked slowly. She looked at her soon to be students and nodded in approval when they didn't flinch, except Naruto's arm…again. She pointed at the purple haired girl named Ami "start."

"Uhm my name is Ami, no last name. I like cooking, my 'sister' Yugao Uzuki, training, traps and explosives. I _hate_ tardiness and up starts that think they're better than us." She shot Naruto, who sat beside her, a glare but looked back at their indifferent sensei "my ambitions are to become a jounin and have a family." She crossed her arms and nodded.

"A worthy goal, Ami. You," this time she pointed at Sai "start."

He grinned his spine shivering fake grin and spoke "my name is Sai, no last name. I like training, drawing and learning. I don't have any dislikes but my ambition is to become a great ninja and person."

Anko levelled her eyes at Naruto and used her coats wrist to clean the little drool that slipped past her lips. She pointed shakily at him and looked away, "start."

He cleared his throat and began "my name is Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze. I like training, sketching, fuinjutsu, ramen and wood/iron work. I dislike useless noises, mistakes, dishonesty and traitors. My ambition is to see this team become Sannin." His team mates gaped at him, Anko swallowed thickly, ran a hand through her hair and sweeping the perspiration off her forehead.

"I-introductions are over and done with, now for your genin test-"

"What! You mean we aren't even genin yet?! What about the graduation exams and these forehead protectors?!" Ami yelled, waving her arms frantically.

"If you shut up I might finish what I was saying." The girl took numerous deep breaths before she nodded for her indifferent but still horny sensei to continue.

"Like I was saying, the exams you took were to see if you could graduate; the _test_ I want to give you is to see if you are worthy enough to become a Konoha genin team." She looked over her students valiantly, avoiding looking at Naruto, "know that if you agree to take the test there is no going back, if you fail you go back to the academy for another year before you will be given the opportunity to become a genin again. I have no problem teaching two students or even _one_ student, none at all. Do you want to risk it or are you confident in your abilities."

Ami shifted uncomfortably on the ground but after a small glare at Naruto she looked at the woman defiantly. Sai remained grinning and unwavering in his place and Naruto just stayed unwavering. Anko nodded and spoke again.

"Good, good. You pass the _first_ portion of my test." Ami sighed in relief, "second test is what I call the 'capture Tora' test. I want you to find and capture the fire daimyos pet cat in the next two hours, fail this test and you go back to school but pass and you're cleared for the third test. Drop the cat off in the Hokage's off where you would find me. Start now." Ami glared at Naruto and stood up but a firm hand on her wrist prevented her from rocketing off in a random direction. She looked at the offending appendage and glared at Sai. Anko had long since disappeared.

"Let go, pasty face! I've got to find that cat!"

"How are you going to find the cat, plum head?" The pale boy asked innocently.

"Like I'd tell you, I am _not_ going back to the academy, now let me go!"

"He means how can you find a cat you don't know?" Naruto piped up, he stood up and so did Sai who still held her wrist.

"Hai, sensei is a torture & interrogation _specialist_ , a master in psychology, I think, so she obviously knows what to say to split us up, have you ever heard of a two or one man team?" the girls glare wavered and his grin seemed to glow "exactly. I propose we stick together."

"Me too" Naruto said, he looked at his fellow 8 year old and nodded in respect. "What of you Ami, do you want to be in the team?" the girls glare blinked out of life but she still ripped her wrist out of the pale boys grip.

"Fine but _never_ touch me again, understand." She growled, "How are we going to find that cat then, genius?" They were quiet until Ami snapped her finger, a light bulb blinking to life above her head almost literally, "spoofy!"

"Excuse me?" the blonde boy blinked.

The girl rolled her eyes and walked towards the village, motioning for them to follow, "I have a pet dog, he stays with Yugao-nee-chan. I can have her sniff the cat out."

"Do you by any chance have a sample of what the cat smells like?" Sai said quietly.

Naruto snapped his fingers, "since the daimyos wife owns the cat then it must be drenched in perfume. Can you have your dog find any trace of expensive perfume from the Kage's mansion to wherever?"

"Spoofy is a genius, he'd find the cat in no time."

It turned out that spoofy was a…Chihuahua. A tiny little thing.

Naruto almost broke his stoic mask and cracked up. Ami gushed all over the dog as it yipped and licked her face. She carried the dog under her arm and locked the apartment door with her spare key.

It also turned out that spoofy _was_ a genius.

A few gushed words from Ami and a firm lick to the face from spoofy and the dog set off on the winded path towards the fire daimyo's wife's cat. It was an odd sight seeing a squealing girl following a tiny Chihuahua, with two boys, the Hokage's son and an abnormally pale boy following after her. The dog was too short to climb over something's so the girl took it upon herself to help him.

Finding the cat was one thing, capturing it was another. It was easier than the one hour walk around Konoha following a dog. All the jutsu Sai knew were offensive but he could draw and summon an ink cage to hold the cat. He did so and Naruto multiplied himself by 30 to trap it in the corner of the alley, it was an epic stand-off. The cat crouched and took a few steps back, ran and jumped over the Naruto's. Only to land in the ink cage. They dropped the cat off with its owner with heads held high and chests puffed in pride. Anko smirked at them and bowed to the blonde Hokage before she motioned for the team to follow her, but had to take a small de tour when Ami had to drop spoofy in Yugao's apartment.

They arrived at a forest and the woman knocked on a random tree. It slide open and she ushered the children in and followed after them, making sure to close the opening. The hallway they walked through was dark and in a straight line. Sai, who was at the front bumped into another door. Anko knew she had a chance to have her way with Naruto but held herself professionally; she walked to the front and slides a bleeding thumb over the door. It unlocked audibly and bolted open, the room they entered was illuminated only by a single light bulb that swung hypnotically in the centre with a single chair under it. It had belts that could hold down people and what Naruto knew as standard chakra suppressors on the back. The room finally had a one way window and an iron door which Anko walked to, opened and ushered the children through again. The opposite side of the window was smaller than the first room, no chairs but a hall way that led somewhere. A rugged man stood there, his presence alone intimidating.

"These them?" he grunted to the older woman.

"Yup, give them the easiest will ya? They don't know the ropes, yet anyway."

"We'll see, Anko." He raised his wrist to his mouth and said, "Bring in victim A"

The door they first walked through slammed open and a haggard and dirty man being held by two heft chunin stumbled in, the chunin strapped him down, saluted to the window and walked out.

"Your test, you explain." The man said lowly, he looked through the window at the prisoner.

"fine." She looked down at the children and began "congratulations on completing the capture portion now it's time for the last test. This man is Ibiki Morino, he is the head of the T&I and he graciously allowed us to use here for it, with special one-time permissions from the man at the top of course. The third portion of the test is interrogation." She smiled when at least one of the children gulped, "you three will get your own chance at interrogating a criminal. You will be scored based on how you interrogate, the honesty level, the speed of the confession and whether or not the person is a blubbering wreck at the end. Ladies first, so Ami this man used to kidnap children from the orphanage and sell them, I want you to find out who the buyer is. We already know but this is your test, take it seriously. Start when you're ready."

The girl's body shook slightly but when she felt two firm hands on her shoulders she squared herself and walked through. The man saw her coming and bellowed a deep laugh.

"Is this some kind of joke? You send in a kid?" he looked at her and licked his teeth, "come here, girlie, set me loose on you." Ami felt her skin crawl with disgust and she spat at his feet "lookie here! Girlie has guts! Go back to your dolls like a good kid, will ya?"

She looked back at the screen and could practically feel his team mates' support. She looked back at the man and cleared her throat; she paced in front of him until he became silent. "I am an orphan and I was a bully. I saw my own mother raped in front of me, repeatedly before she was beheaded. They painted our apartment with her blood. I still have nightmares…"

"Boo hoo, are you done? This isn't the least bit threatening."

"I stopped bullying when I almost stabbed someone. But…" she took out a kunai and traced it on his neck "I still get these urges, you know. I still want to bath in blood, not clean blood. Oh no, not clean blood!" she grinned at him and cackled. He remained defiant and looked her straight in the eyes, "your blood, my friend, is not clean. I'm not a vampire of course but I like blood!" She grabbed his face and let held it a few inches in front of hers, "can I have some, even a little?"

"Go to hell you little bitch! You don't have the guts!"

She gently let go of his head and began stroking his cheek. She sat on his lap and reclined her feet over one of his arms. All the while she twirled her kunai. " _That_ is not what I wanted to hear, well I wanted you to refuse but still…" she plunged her kunai through his right shoulder and relished in his grunt of pain. "Ah, I haven't heard that in _years_." She twisted her weapon three times, removed it and smeared the blood on his forehead. "If only I knew I was handling blood today, I would have brought my lucky apron. Do you want to tell me the buyer now?"

His body shook but he still spat in her face. She grinned, her eyes wide and hysterical, and cracked her neck, "thank kami for you huh?" she stood up and took out some bandages. She sheathed her kunai and wrapped both her hands in it, " _thank kami for you._ " She sighed wistfully and punched him at the side of his head, another punch to the other side and a last one had him bruised but still defiant. She gave him punch after punch after punch so when she finished he was a bloody mess. "Thank kami for you!"

"Ok, ok, I'll tell you! Please just stop," he pleaded, blood dribbling out of the side of his mouth, "his name's Hamacho, he's from Kumo. I swear I'm not lying."

She walked around him, trailing her hands on his neck gently as opposed to how bloody her bandages were "you poor thing. Are you sure you're not lying?" she cupped his face and squeezed harshly "think _hard…_ "

"The drop off zone is in Tanzuki town, behind Gale's bar and restaurant, look for a man in pink pants, please that's all I know! I swear!" he sobbed, trying to look away from her crazed eyes. She patted his head and stood up.

"Good boy now was that so bad?" he didn't respond, his eyes still screwed shut. Then she cocked her head sideways and looked at the screen, "I'm done, right?"

The crowd were agape, even Sai. "I thought she was the normal one." Anko mumbled. How could such a sweet looking girl have an inner Harley Quinn? Ibiki regained his composure and buzzed the door open, and he lifted his wrist to his mouth "take him away and bring victim B" he looked at the girl that entered the room and contemplated proposing to her, but held himself back when he remembered what Anko did. He did not want to lose his nuts.

"That was awesome," Anko squealed and she patted the girl on her shoulder. She had not removed her bandages, "10/10, total honesty, total brutality and a blubbering mess! If this team passes you have a job here I guarantee it, right Ibiki?"

"Hai, that was very scary."

The door slammed open again and the same chunin strapped the next man into the chair, saluted and left. "Next up, Sai. This man broke into the home of an academy student and killed her, find out why and/or who sent him if there is. We also know the answers, take this seriously. Begin when you're ready." The boy nodded and sent a wave at his team mates before he entered the room. The man just glared at him and spat, Sai just kept his grin.

"Hello sir, my name is Sai. What's yours?"

"Piss off, brat." He said quietly.

"Sorry I can't do that, you see I have to get the reason you killed the student from you, any means necessary and you don't seem like the pointless killing kind of man so will you tell me?"

"Piss. Off."

The smile was wiped from the pale boys face and he took out his ink and pad. He slowly drew a line through it and showed the man, "good, look at the line." He snapped his fingers and the line jumped off the page and into the man's mouth. "For every time you refuse to answer a question you will be subjected to a painful sensation, do you wish to talk _now_?" the man bent his head and remained silent. Sai formed the ram seal and a black tentacle erupted from the side of the man's stomach, he yelled in pain, eyes watering but still silent, "now?" a tentacle erupted from his pelvis, more screams "now?" a tentacle erupted from his shoulders "now?" the man was in mind numbing pain, he nodded and confessed that the girl's father killed his daughter. Sai smiled brightly and released the seal; he snapped his fingers and the black line flew out of the man's mouth, splashing onto the ground. He looked at the screen and raised a thumbs up.

"10/10, intimidating smile, quick confession and let's not forget blood." She looked at Naruto and bit her lips, "next up is _Naruto-kun_ " hearing Anko moan Ibiki looked at her with his eyebrows lost in the bandanna on his head, he coughed nervously and called in the next victim. "This guy claimed he came to Konoha from Iwa to collect the Sandaime's bounty, total lie. Find out the truth. Go in when you're ready."

Naruto also chose to go bloody. He asked for the reason for the man entering the village and his response was a laugh and the lie.

"Did you know there are nerves clustered on the tips of our fingers and toes? I could slip a needle in one…" he whipped out the needle of an empty syringe and rammed it cleanly through his pinkie finger, "and the pain would feel like I am hitting it with a mallet, correct?" The boy spoke over the man's screams, he suppressed his sympathy, he needed to get this over with so he might not be squeamish when he dissected Nobu's corpse. "If to say I was to put another one…" he rammed another through the man's index finger and smiled faintly, "you would feel like your whole body's on fire. Do you want another," a defiant glare later and he pressed the pinkie gently at first but clamped on it tightly within a few seconds. "It hurts huh? Why were you in Konoha?" and he was singing like an opera star. He was to steal one of the Yondaime's kunai and bring it back to Iwa for analysis. He took out the needles sharply and turned around.

He heard a loud " _oh kami I'm cumming!_ " and a loud, satisfied sigh two minutes later, "10/10, fantastic, amazing, sweet _kami_ that felt good!" the others stood away from her "you guys pass with flying colours. If you were observant you would notice the tests; this team will have capture and interrogation functions. First mission tomorrow, meet me in training ground 43 by 6:00am sharp. Dismissed except for you, _Naruto-kun_." Ibiki walked as calmly as he could away with the two other children trailing behind him. Anko looked at Naruto and sighed tiredly, "is this a side effect of the seal because I can never get tired of this! I feel like I'm having a mini orgasm every time I _say_ your name!"

"It's not a side effect, Anko-sensei." He said blandly, his hand trailing his senbon launcher idly but also purposefully. "The seal takes the nature chakra back to the environment through that senbon still buried in the forest. It'll remove itself one every month. Orochimaru's presence is gone so you feel liberated somehow; maybe that's why you keep looking at me like that." He shuffled to the hallway "I'll be on my way" and he walked off but he heard her yell.

"I will have sex with you, _Naruto-kun_! That's my ambition!"

He rolled his eyes, and at the same time repeatedly assured himself that this was just a woman thing and it will pass. Hopefully.

 **Authors note**

 **Sorry for the indecent scene, blood and violence. Besides that, how was it? Anko and somehow Ibiki are a bit OOC. Ami is definitely OOC, Sai…I'm not sure.**

 **As a side note, try reading my other stories, see if their worth a sequal. I like them, would you? Take a risk dudes'!**

 **Review.**

 **B.j.**


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

 **A year later**

Anko looked over her team as they stood in front of her and had never been prouder.

At first, when the Hokage told her the reason he wanted her to befriend his son she wanted to kill something, but right now, after another successful training session she wanted to squeal at her luck. At first glance, one would think she would not make a good sensei, her team was living proof that she was.

The team was a capture and interrogate based team so the D-rank missions they took had to do with investigating thefts, finding lost property and interrogating low level criminals; for the first time in the history of Konoha, a genin team looked forward to D-ranks. They were the first newly minted genin to collect a C-rank and a B-rank early; the Hokage could find no reason to hold them back from taking one. The mission was a relatively easy one: they had to help the police in Tanzuki town find out who was robbing their towns small retail businesses, they found out that it was a small time thug that wanted to make a name for himself.

Team 14 had their individual strengths that made them the best ranking genin in their generation.

They mostly had the same skills but some had more specialties. Like, Sai was quiet and a very good critical thinker; he was the one that usually found a lead in a mission. His taijutsu was average but his ink (art? Drawing?) Ninjutsu _and_ genjutsu was what he used to compensate, so he was a long range specialist. He was quiet and professional, and he was a stone cold killer. Like all of them.

Ami was the one that ironed out the details and connected the lead with another. She had learnt that she was a mid to long range specialist, with her traps and weapon aim being on par with Naruto's. Her taijutsu was passable but her genjutsu were a thing to behold, she had taken to looking for one of Anko's friends, Kureanai, and making illusions that she got from her many nightmares. That was why Naruto hated sparring with her going all out; she would gain distance and place him in an illusion before she would incapacitate him with a kunai to the neck since dispelling an illusion took a while for him to gather the chakra and dispel it painfully out of his tenketsu. She had the record in the team for the fastest trap made, so she and the team's sensei were in charge of making the training course.

Naruto was the mid to close range specialist because of his taijutsu, ninjutsu and fuinjutsu. He was the strongest in the team for obvious reasons so he was the one to make the plan of action when they solve a case in the mission or are to capture someone or something. He revealed to them that he was a puppeteer when his oji-sama advised him to do so; team mates don't keep secrets from each other. He made them swear not to reveal it to the general public until he was a jounin, thank fully they agreed.

But the thing they all had in common was that they had no problem with killing as long as it wasn't illegal. At least Ami enjoyed it.

Anko had them running laps, doing physical exercises, mental conditioning and some torture methods from dawn till noon, which was when they would go to the missions' office for a mission. They would learn jutsu at their own time or if they met her. She wanted to nominate them for the chunin exams earlier but wanted to wait for the next one that was in Konoha. That way everyone would see that _she_ could teach. _'Take that, Ebisu.'_

Though the woman still couldn't stop saying the Naruto's name without moaning. It was a work in progress. She just took to calling him 'Gaki' or 'Blondie.' It was safer not to moan his name out in front of his parents or her colleagues. She had a reputation to keep, right.

"Quick question," she snapped as she looked them over, they stood at attention in front of her looking back at her with their faces neutral, "what would you do if Blondie here is held hostage?"

It was Sai that answered, "We don't have to do anything, his can use his strings to free himself."

"What if Sai is held hostage?"

Ami answered, "There are seals on his wrists and back of neck that can shoot out weapons. We still don't have to do anything."

"Smart, smart, what of Ami?"

Naruto spoke, "she can do a sealless disorientation genjutsu, after that the rest is history."

She put her hands on her hips and grinned, _'oh yeah, these guys are so passing the chunin exams.'_ Anko then schooled her face and folded her arms on her chest, "if you ever encounter a person with an even more potent chakra than Blondie, what would you do."

Ami cleared her throat and replied, "Which is still yet to be seen but we would see if the person is immune to poisons or illusions. Naruto's strongest poison can kill a bear, my strongest illusion can traumatize a genjutsu specialist." Her team mates nodded at her reply. "We could also always see if he could survive all three of us going all out."

Anko nodded and smirked at the memory of Kureanai demanding she sleep over with her because of one of Ami illusions. The sweet girl.

"That's good. The chunin exams are around the corner and by that I mean tomorrow; you may have noticed the influx of foreigners in the village. I believe you three are ready to compete."

"Ne sensei, are you sure?" the purple haired girl asked, "I mean we just graduated from the academy last year."

"If I didn't think you guys were ready I wouldn't nominate you." She presented three slips of paper and handed it to them, "fill those and report to the front of the Hokage tower if you want to participate. 8 'o clock sharp. Got it?"

"Hai, sensei!"

"dismissed." And she walked out of their unofficially claimed second training ground with training ground 44 AKA the forest of death being their first unofficially claimed training ground. She chose not to reveal the fact that the exams may not have too many contestants with Iwa hating Konoha and Kumo still fearing an attack from Konoha. Still there were plenty enough since the civil war in Kiri had ended some time ago they would be able to send their genin, that village has seen a decade of war so she didn't expect them to be stringy and she knew as a fact that Suna were not string. Maybe the smaller villages would show up, her students needed a challenge.

Back in the training ground, Sai was looking at the form in his hands. He and his team were going to attend their first chunin exams, this was really happening. He may not know how to express it but Sai was nervous, _'what if I mess up?'_ he scrunched up his pale face lightly. The pale boy looked at his fellow 9 year old and grinned, he was also nervous but held it in very well. He at first only joined the team because his real leader had commanded him to but now that he had spent a whole year with Naruto as well as Ami he couldn't help but like them, despite his peculiar nicknames for them they were the closest thing to family he had with Danzo sending his 'brother' on a suicide mission.

"Hey dickless, you're going right?"

Naruto took in a weary breath and pinched his nose. He would never get used to being called that, despite all the pleading, death threats and all the beatings he gave the boy during their spars he wouldn't stop. Sometimes he just felt like strangling him but realized that boy was a Konoha ninja so his absence would be noticed and most likely Danzo would come after him early; it was blaringly obvious that the pale and emotionally messed up boy was a ROOT operative. Although the fact that he was close to being his friend he didn't want to bring him any nearer in case he would have to be forced to kill him. "Sai I am warning you, stop calling me that."

"Yeah, yeah, just like you warned me yesterday, _dickless_ " he savoured the glare the blonde boy gave him, "I've read that name calling strengthens bonds."

"I don't think calling someone dickless strengthens anything, Sai." Ami piped up from their side, she shuffled closer to their circle with a wide grin. She wore a black form fitting short sleeved apron shirt with a mesh armour shirt beneath and tight red shorts with black sandals and long red socks that passed her knees. Her purple hair was cut short so it hung a bit over her shoulders. She now took to wearing her bandages anytime she came for training and her 'lucky apron' sealed in her wrist.

"On the contrary, psycho, I think me and dickless here are the best of friends. Isn't that right, dickless?" she maintained her composure at her nickname, she actually like it. But Naruto was another story entirely; the normally stoic boy grabbed Sai by the collar and glared figurative fire balls out of his eyes. Sai's grin seemed to widen "easy there, I don't kiss boys."

With a final glare, Naruto let go of the messed up ROOT operative and closed his eyes, taking breathing exercises. Not even Shin yu could get him this agitated; he blamed the nerves he had for the test tomorrow. "Yes Sai, I'm going are you?"

"Of course I am, dickless" the boy seemed to get some form of sick pleasure calling Naruto that name, "what of you, psycho?" the girl just nodded. "See you tomorrow then." He waved and walked off the training ground; his other team mates also left for their homes.

Naruto chose to go to the site of his newly constructed house. More like a freshly rehabilitated house; there was no one willing to sell a plot of land to an 8 year old whether the Hokage's son or not. It was a run down two story building that was located further away from the rest of the houses in the residential area; it was on the edge of a forest. It was formerly owned by a particularly irresponsible man; the house was inherited from his late parents but apparently he needed the money more than he cherished the house. The place was secluded and quiet. The building was normal sized and the remaining land it was on was wide enough for a personal training ground.

It contained a living room, a kitchen, six bedrooms with bathrooms in each, a storage room, an attic and a basement. All he had to do was replace the furniture, the water pipes, electrical system and re-paint the whole place, he added in his own security system. The most noticeable security feature was the tall fence that surrounded his property; it had a blood seal on the entrance and a sort of durability seal that would protect it for a time against jutsu.

He had carved out multiple pairs of hands and designed a unique seal called 'the heart seal' which gave the hands some semblance of life and a small supply of chakra, so they could make a string of green chakra. He then constructed over 30 puppets that all looked the same with no distinguishing features, he had them wear black on black and equally black face masks with a spider painting on the forehead, and connected the wooden hands to them. He hid the hands in dark corners of inside and outside his house; the puppets that were connected to it would patrol around silently at night but would stay hidden but still vigilant by day, remaining unseen until a fool wanted to break in. They were built similar to his mummy puppet but without the bandages which meant that they were amazingly fast and mercilessly strong, add in the random weapons he gave them and they were jounin level. He called them his 'shadows.'

Naruto chose to make the basement where he would keep all the essential machines and seals that powered the whole house. He kept a larger version of his heart seal carved into a wall; it supplied the smaller heart seals around the compound with the chakra Naruto gave it every 6 months. The only down side to the whole heart seal was that it gave the puppets chakra to move about but they needed a mind to make them think and fight, to solve that he left seven highly powered clones in the basement to control the hands through the main heart seal. The way they could see what was going on was by connecting a chakra string from the back of their necks to a part of the seal; it was dizzy seeing from all those eyes but they had long since gotten used to the feeling. Clones didn't need food or sleep so they were very effective. He also kept the main generator there and the main source of the houses electricity (I've forgotten the name). The door had a blood seal on it and he covered the only window with durability and torture seals that would subject the person that touched it to a less than pleasant feeling.

The whole house was a living trap just waiting for a poor idiot to spring it.

He built a small separate house outside the main building that functioned as a workshop and forge. He has not used the place yet so that meant that the equipment and tools he purchased were still pristine and new though blood draining-ly expensive. He literally felt like he lost a few pints of blood after seeing the price _and_ paying for it.

The work has been completed for the past four months but he wanted to become a chunin before he moved in. _'thank kami for clones.'_

Right now he was checking up on the clones he put in charge of security.

"Anything new?"

"Not really, just that Danzo's getting more and more curious about the house, we've had to kill 7 of his ROOT operatives in the last few months."

"Have you turned them into puppets?"

"On that same day, boss." That was another thing he had been doing. He had finally perfected turning a person into a puppet. He had to practice the art extensively on animals, the smaller mammals until he got to animals that were approximately the size and weight of humans i.e. apes. The animals he turned into puppets that were successful he stored them in a spare room just in case he would ever need them. The process took a lot of his conscience away from him but it was worth it, he did all of this before he turned Nobu into one and for his first attempt it was perfect. He clothed him in the same clothes as his shadows but the bandages around his face were green. He sealed the dead boy in a tattoo on his left arm. His cursed seal was still very useful so he made sure to train with him on how to use it. The fact that there were more human puppets as guards was a nice addition because human puppets could also perform nin- and genjutsu. He had so many secret weapons it wasn't funny.

"Where are they?"

"They were the ones at the gate."

"Good. Have some of them give a quick scan around."

"On it boss." The clone connected the chakra string from his neck and closed his eyes. Naruto looked around and nodded in satisfaction; the place was very nice. "Eh boss, I've just caught another one." The clone's eyes were still closed in concentration.

"ROOT?"

"Hai, the dude was trying to counter the blood seal on the south gate; probably doesn't know that its unique." He snapped his fingers and looked at his 'boss' "we've finished the memory seal and added it to the heart seal, we're just here to add as much as we can. It seems we have to add a quick scan every 5 hours during the day." The memory seal was a means of controlling the puppets without any clones', it recorded the movements, moves, formations and skills that the clones had the puppets perform so that they would be able to perform a task when it was presented. So far they had to go through all the scenarios they could come up with and incorporate it to the memory seal. (Sort of like programming a computer.)

The real Naruto patted the clone on the shoulder, "sensei nominated my team for the chunin exams; I wouldn't be coming for at most three months, keep everything organized."

"Hai boss."

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

He couldn't feel her.

The knowledge scared him. Though he wasn't a model sensei he cared dearly for the girl, albeit in a twisted, psychotic, stupid way. He placed the seal on her for her own benefit but it turned own to be defective, there wasn't anything he could do; he couldn't look at her after he had bitten into her neck. She was betrayed but it was for her own good, she should be thanking him for his last gift to her. The seal connected them in no way like the other seals he had given his other followers.

The man sat on a spiny throne in a dimly lit room, his breath raspy and his body shuddering in the ghostly pain of Itachi's amaterasu. His unnerving yellow slitted eyes glowed in the dark and squinted as another pained shudder flowed through him. His current body was rejecting him but he wasn't scared, he'd soon have that damn Namikaze's son and make him his new body. Maybe it was because his current body was rejecting him that he couldn't concentrate on his precious student. Though almost sadistic as him, he knew Anko's softer side and that was why her 'presence' was soothing. His glazed over eyes snapped to the doorway as a silhouette blocked the light from outside, "what do you want?"

The person was tall and lean, unhealthily so. "I have bad news from Konoha, Orochimaru-sama." He shuffled in nervously and knelt down with his head looking at the ground. He stuttered over a few words but when he heard the snake Sannin's angry hiss he blurted out, "Kabuto sent back a message that Nobu-san was killed." If the man had the strength to stand up he would rip into the poor boy, but he settled for a deranged yell. The boy used the chance to make a swift escape.

The man kept yelling, he searched for his students feeling to calm him down but still couldn't find her. He clamped down his jaws when the yell turned pained, the pain was almost unbearable, "Kimimaro!"

Footsteps pounded towards him, "yes Orochimaru-sama." This boy was also tall and lean but he held himself more like a robot, without any trace of fear for the man but an ultimate amount of respect and unquenchable loyalty for the man before him.

"Find any worthy person to be my new body and bring him back here! Now!" he grabbed the boy by his neck and held him, the man quietly hissed to Kimimaro's face "do not fail me, Kimimaro." And threw him towards the door.

"Hai, Orochimaru-sama."

' _Anko, where are you?'_

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

' _Interesting.'_

This was the collective thought of team 14. The first exam was to separate them into three groups with no two team mates in the same group and the jounin in charge of a group would intimidate them into quitting and when most of the weak willed chunin hopeful pulled out they revealed the true reason for that particular exam. If one person in the other group ran away with his/her tail between his/her legs then the whole team would be evicted from the exams. It was pathetic really. Almost as pathetic as the second test.

In all honesty, it was harder than the first. The remaining teams were then shoved into the forest of death with either a red or a blue scroll, tasked to collect the other coloured scroll and report to the tower in the centre of the deadly forest, doing all of this and also avoiding capture from chunin Inuzuka and Hyuuga.

This is where we find ourselves…

Finding and collecting the scrolls was nothing to the Anko trained genin, avoiding capture from a particularly vexed group of Inuzuka chunin was another thing entirely.

"Hold still you damn bitch!" one of the three feral chunin yelled to Ami. The girl rolled away from the unrestrained _'fang over fang'_ and jumped over the man's partner. The man stopped for a breather and was about to move for another attack but he and his ninken were promptly held down by three chakra arms courtesy of Naruto. Ami gave him a thumb up and went through some hand seals that ended on the _dragon_ seal.

' _Purple illusion: black ice snake's smile!'_

The custom made genjutsu was a by-product of the girl's nightmares. It showed a snake like shadowy construct winding around the victim-restricting his arms at his side-sending cold tendrils over him. The construct wore a blank, eyeless mask that would level with the persons face and slip off revealing an equally eyeless but toothy creature that would open his mouth in an impossibly wide grin, showing of serrated teeth that wound down further into its throat. The mouth would glow _black_ and the victim would feel like his eyes were being sucked out of his body along with his soul. This was what was happening to the Inuzuka chunin, his brown eyes dilated and his mouth opened in horror, then he passed out into blissful unconsciousness, his ninken following suit.

The blonde lay the man down gently and checked behind him to see how his other team mate was doing against the equally if not more enrage chunin. He was doing fine; he had his mummy puppet fight alongside him.

Why were the chunin mad? The only girl in the genin team thought it would be funny to set wedgie traps along with her normal low level traps to delay the obviously easily enraged chunin and their ninken.

The ROOT agent back flipped a slash and punch from the partners, giving the mummy an opening for a particularly vicious heel kick to the human partners jaw. The man stumbled back but the dog clamped his jaws on the mummy's leg, the puppet cackled and speed wrapped the animal in its chakra draining bandages, knocking it out in a minute. The mummy gestured to the last Inuzuka that was tied to a tree to Sai, the boy nodded and drew some ink tentacles, commanding them to hold the pair, allowing the purple haired girl to go through a different set of hand seals and she cast another custom made illusion.

' _Purple illusion: Yami's army!'_

This illusion made the receiver think her were in one of Suna's deserts, running on fumes, till they hear an ominous trumpet and the sand turned to black silt and the cloudless sky slowly formed green clouds that poured diluted acid on them. The will to live would be drained from them when bone white skeletal hands erupt from the ground and drag them in, and in the ground, effectively knocking them out when they entered the ground. Sai instructed the tentacle to drop the man and his partner onto the ground and the whole team looked at the last man who had recovered from the powered kick a second later.

The man growled defiantly at them when he saw his team out cold lying on the ground. He was about to run at them in a last ditch-and dumb-effort at over powering them but slumped on the ground like a rag doll after a step when the missing mummy puppet erupted from the ground and chopped his neck. The creations weapon secured on its back, but it wasn't black but it was a normal scythe (you know, wood and steel). Naruto had the real obsidian scythe on his back.

"That was fun!" the genjutsu specialist exclaimed as she put her arms behind her head and sauntered in the general direction of the tower.

"We can't just leave them here, you know, wild animals could eat them." The sole blonde piped up tonelessly. He threw a kunai into the bush in front of him, scaring away a tiger that prowled on the other side, the humongous creature recognised their scent and knew better than to challenge them.

"Leave a clone or something." She waved at him dismissively. The made a sealless clone and jumped into the trees, Sai at his side and Ami behind him. They were the first team to reach the tower and the only team to present more than two sets of the coloured scrolls.

"Congratulations to all who have made it to this last stage in the exams." The Yondaime was the one who spoke; he then went into a long winded monologue about the real reason for the chunin exams (dudes', I am not writing that). The war veteran glanced over all the chunin aspirants with a wide grin. He swished his arms to his right, motioning for someone behind him to come forward, "Kakashi, your turn."

The masked man sighed dourly and snapped his porn closed. He stepped forward and said, "You guys are too many, so there would be a preliminary round before the real third round." True to his words there were 8 teams, making 24 genin. The genin though were out raged and some voiced this very loudly, Kakashi though looked over them with a bored eye, "shut up. If there is anyone here that doesn't think he or she is fit enough to continue the third exams they can leave, those left on your team can proceed without you no problem." None raised their hands. The man's shoulders slumped in defeat, "well then, if you turn your gazes to the screen above you would be able to see who you're matched against."

'Neoshiki Ba of Kiri vs. Mita Saito of Suna.'

"The rest of you beside the named genin should go to the competitors' booth and wait your turn." Ba was a sickly looking boy from Kiri. His skin was bland, his eyes held heavy bags and his hair was stringy and limp. He wore a dull yellow short sleeved shirt with an impossible number of pockets on it and red pants that had absolutely no pockets at all. His arms were so thin they looked skeletal, but from his quiet but confident posture you would know that he was far from sick, though the masked proctor still asked, "er…are you sure you want to compete; you don't look too good." The boy glared darkly at him in response. The man rolled his eye and looked at the other boy. The boy was from Suna; his skin was golden brown from tanning. He wore a sandy brown camo scarf and equally sandy brown camo baggy pants. His shirt was black with the kanji for 'chameleon' on his right chest with an intricately drawn chameleon winding over his left arm that the sleeve was torn off. His hair was styled into a green mohawk that shadowed his left eye with an overhanging bang. The boy was busy waving to the crowd, occasionally blowing a kiss to a girl he thought winked at him. "Kid…" the boy did little tap dance for the crowd and was met with the satisfying sound of laughter. "…Mita, are you ready."

The boy stretched his body for a full minute before he responded, "yup."

The man chopped his hands between them and yelled, "Neoshiki Ba vs. Mita Saito. Fight." He jumped back and Ba jumped back as well to dodge Mita's long tongue. The boy retracted it and shot it out again but the sickly boy ran up the wall and back flipped, the appendage impacted the wall and cracked it. Ba put his hand into one of his pockets. The one at is lower back, and brought out a bone white kunai and threw it at the organ, the sand genin pulled it back into his mouth and spat out the rocks that came with it. His tattoo glowed orange and then he shimmered out of sight, the pale Kiri genin jumped into the middle of the arena, closed his right eye and held the snake seal.

' _Ninja art: Shiki's eye view.'_

 **Kage's booth**

"I haven't heard of that jutsu before, Mizukage-dono." The Kazekage muttered loudly, he looked at the young woman who wore a proud grin, "and I feel like this year's chunin exams will show more of these unfamiliar jutsu." (True that!)

"Ba is a special case; after Kumo-dono helped us win the civil war we found Ba-kun under the rubble in the Kage's tower. He couldn't use some of the conventional jutsu, so he had to make his own. What of Mita, Kazekage-dono, what's his story?"

"The boy and his family were immigrants from Kusa, his father works in my council and he told me that Mita was the only one in their family that the chameleons trusted enough to sign their contract."

The Hokage hummed in thought and asked, "two very special cases and I also feel like this exams would reveal something never seen before." The other Kage's nodded in agreement.

 **In the arena**

Ba suddenly threw his kunai to his right and ran after it, the weapon clanged out of the air, the boy kicked where it clanged off and the chameleon summoner melted back into sight and fell on his knees, holding his stomach and gasping for air. The pale boy gave him another kick but this time to his head but the boy contorted his body and slinked backwards. He stood up and ran at his opponents. He jabbed the Kiri nin on his chest but on contact he felt a small stinging pain, he parried the pale boys kick and felt the pain but stronger, in his distraction Ba palm struck his chest and stepped back. Yellow veins protruded from Mita's chest to his neck till it covered his body, he gasped and fell on his knees again.

"It would be wise if you forfeit Mita-san. A human can only take so much lack of oxygen." Neoshiki said to his asphyxiating opponent. The boy's face was turning a deep purple contrasting the bright yellow veins on his body. Kakashi looked at him but held his surprise in when Mita stumbled to his feet and took a stance.

"Fat chance." He cart wheeled forward and a spikey tail grew out of his tail bone. The boy blurred to his opponent and wrapped the spiny appendage around his body, Ba grabbed the tail but jerked it off when an uber sharp bone shot out of it then his eyes widened when Mita's tongue wrapped around his throat, all the while his own face getting deeper and deeper purple. Ba struggled in the hold and gasped when the Suna nin punched his stomach again and again. He tried wriggling out of the hold but the tail and tongue tightened around him, making breathing all the more harder. The punches kept coming and his struggling lessened.

"that's enough, winner Mita!" said boy let go of his pale opponent and at the same time they collapsed onto the ground, but Ba still found the strength to crawl over, put his hand on Mita's shoulder and suck out his chakra. "Medics!"

(I'm not going to write all the awesome matches, just the noteworthy ones.)

'Ami of Konoha vs. Jogu of Taki' (I can't remember the name)

The purple haired girl looked at her team mates in a rare show of nerves. The blonde allowed a small smile to show on his face and he patted her shoulder while Sai grinned and slapped her back. She winced from the contact but still pulled them into a quick group hug, warmed from the friendly hair ruffle from her sensei, and leaped over the railing to her awaiting opponent. The boy was an almost exact replica of Naruto's tank puppet except he frowned heavily and glared darkly at her, and he was a hidden waterfall nin.

"Just give up girlie; you're obviously no match for me." She looked at the crowd till her eyes fell on her surrogate sister. Yugao was uncharacteristically jumping in her seat, cheering for her. She waved at her and turned back to the fat boy, his eyes snapped to where she looked and he smirked evilly, "I bet she knows you'll lose, girlie."

"If that's your best way of intimidating me then you're doing a horrible job." The girl said airily. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and waved to her team who gave her thumbs up.

"Oh and you can do a better job than me?" he snorted. He bellowed a laugh and waved for Kakashi to begin the match.

"Ami vs. Jogu. Fight!"

The girl sniffed and tightened her bandages nonchalantly as she dodged a ground breaking blow to her former position, she yawned and dodged another but this time she tried to stick her kunai into the stretched arm but it clanged off. She followed the arm to Jogu who stood about 15 feet away from her.

"That's my special jutsu. I can stretch as far as I want and my body is as hard as a rock."

"You shouldn't go around telling people your secrets or you could get _really_ hurt." She jumped over another punch and ran on it to him, kicking his head back and flipping off when his other arm came at her.

"Like a pipe squeak girlie could hurt me. Last chance, give up."

She sniffed again and let her hair shadow her eyes, "are you calling me weak?"

"That's exactly what I'm calling you!"

"Good, then I can beat you all I want to prove you wrong." She threw a kunai and detonated it when his arm came up to block. The smoke obscured his view and he used his soccer ball sized hands to wave it away. When it was clear his eyes widened.

He was in a room with a mirror on the wall looking at himself. The room had no windows or doors; it only had the single, large mirror. The Jogu in the mirror was identical to him but the difference was the shadows under his eyes. The held tried to dispel the obvious genjutsu but it didn't even blur at the edges, which meant it was at least higher than B rank. He cursed himself for not learning how to dispel higher genjutsus'.

A chair materialized behind the mirror Jogu with straps and belts that were meant to restrain him, it pulled the boy down, the real one following suit and miming the motion but there was no seat but he still sat on the air with his feet planted on the ground. He heard jaunty whistling more common to sailors and saw Ami washing her hands in a sink that was definitely not there before, she dried it on a cloth, re-wrapped her bandages on her arms and wore a red cooking apron over her apron shirt. She turned around and grinned toothily at him, she was in the mirror with the fake him but not in the still empty room with the real him.

She ghosted her hands on his chubby cheeks and giggled. Ami walked around the chair and grabbed them like handle bars, "I am going to hurt you, Jogu-san. I am going to hurt you really, really bad." The girl licked her lips and taped the mirror Jogu's mouth closed, the real one strangely felt the tape but didn't see it. She looked at a rack of weapons that materialised at her right and picked a tanto. The girl gently put the tanto on the right side of his right chest and slowly pressed it and drew it down till it reached his pelvis, the boy screamed, feeling the invisible pain and struggled against the equally invisible chair. The girl bit her lip in joy and trailed the knife down his other sides till he was all bloody from a weapon that only his mirror self's side had. She jammed the knife into his knees and picked up some smelling salts, waving it under his nose to keep him awake. She giggled and picked up some hot sauce. "Guess what I'm going to do with this." He shook his head hysterically and tried to pull back and away from her. "Correct. You're so smart!"

All the audience saw was the girl standing about 10 feet away from the boy that mimed sitting on a torture chair. His voice was muffled but from the tears that streamed down his face and the screams that made out of passed his mouth all knew he was in a world of pain. The girl sighed in satisfaction and folded her arms behind her head; this went on for a minute before he collapsed on the ground in a dead faint.

' _Purple illusion: you see you.'_

The masked proctors eyes widened and he yelled for medics. "Winner Ami!"

In the competitors' booth, Anko looked at a sweating Ebisu. She had bet all her life saving and her pay for the next 5 years (let's say 50,000,000ryo) on all her students passing the preliminaries while the man bet on the Yondaime's kid going through and the other two getting killed in their own matches, 200,000ryo for each death. The majority of the other chunin and jounin that were not familiar with her team bet against her with half if not all their life saving. Needless to say, if the assumed weakest could win against a walking tank without touching him then the snake lady would become a very wealthy woman.

Ami walked back to her team and silently looked at her sensei. The woman beamed and silently ruffled her hair, Sai gave her another slap on the back while Naruto nudged her ribs.

'Ito Yumi of Kusa vs. Sai of Konoha'

"Wish me luck Anko-sensei. Dickless, psycho…" the girl grinned and slapped his back, _hard_ , sending him over the railing. He laughed and righted himself before he impacted the ground. Sai's opponent was a ninja from Kusa. He wore a khaki shirt and trousers with white sandals and a white trench coat. He wore shades and a black bandana with a skull on it over his hair but a bit of his red hair escaped the front and fringed between his eyes. His eyes were black and his skin was pale and thin.

"I don't have time for this, see" the boy drawled, his blue tongue slipping out and licking his lips, "just give up and go home, see, 'cause I'm going to win this exams, see, and you will die if you proceed, _see_ "

"I hope you're as strong as you think you are, Ito-san." Sai responded.

"Ito Yumi vs. Sai. Fight!"

Ito slipped out a metal walking stick from his coat and smirked, _'secret art: song of a million bullets'_

And true to the name, it rained bullets, not from the sky though.

"Dance! See, dance!" the man yelled in ecstasy. He fired bullet after bullet at the boy who ran around the arena from the lethal slugs. The bullets stopped but the other boy just cocked the stick and started firing it again.

Sai chose to hide behind a tree that took the brunt of the attacks valiantly. Plans whizzed in his mind till he settled for the easiest one he could think of and mentally thanked his blonde team mate. _'Earth release: hiding like a mole'_ he slides into the ground and all traces of his presence disappeared. He stalked to the crazed gunslinger and pulled him under till only his head remained. The black haired boy jumped out of the ground and held a kunai to his throat.

"That was quick," Kakashi murmured, "winner, Sai."

Ebisu wanted to die. He looked at his team and gave them a brave-but fake-smile. He was done for.

The snake lady looked at him and gave him a feral grin with a finger wriggling wave. She saw her student look at her expectantly, "you did good, kid." Though it was small, she saw the relief wash over his face, the boy turned around and grinned at the last team mate whose name had popped up on the screen.

'Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze of Konoha vs. Hamacho Sho of waterfall'

 **Kage's booth**

"My money's on Naruto. That other guy has no chance."

"You say that as if you know my sons fighting style, Kazekage-dono." Minato said, he glanced at the female Kage and raised an eyebrow, "you too huh?" the woman nodded.

"I have a good idea on how he fights."

 _Flashback_

 **This is about the time he moved out of the house after the birthday.**

"How have you been, Gaara?" Naruto said to the red head. They were in one of the rooms in The Golden Leaf hotel, trying to catch up on lost time. Temari couldn't come because she wasn't feeling too well and Kankuro chose to follow his father to the Kage's tower for the meeting that was usually held every time they visited. The two 8 year olds sat opposite each other, actually smiling. Gaara laid his gourd near his bed, while Naruto laid a large scroll beside it. "I hope Temari gets better."

"She'll be fine. Things in Suna are too dull, you know. At least my control over my sand is better, thanks to your kaa-san, that's good." Naruto waved his hands dismissively and reclined in his seat, "so what was that secret project you were doing that you couldn't tell me through letter?"

The blonde looked around the room conspiratorially and whispered, "I'm learning how to fight with puppets."

"Like Kankuro-nii-san?" the blonde nodded, "cool! Can you show me?"

Naruto wriggled his fingers and a thin green thread coiled out of his index finger, reached into his coat and pulled out a small, plain wooden puppet. He connected the rest of his fingers to it and commanded the creation to dance around the room. "I'm still on the smaller puppets but soon I'll be on the bigger ones."

"That's still cool."

 **Time skip: 3 hours later**

Both boys lay on the grass looking at the clouds with their gourd and scroll lying beside them.

"Ne Gaara," the red head grunted beside him, "I saw this cool taijutsu scroll in the library, you wanna see what I can do?" The red head looked at him and sat up. The blonde jumped to his feet and stretched his arms, he then breathed in deeply and raised his right hand to Gaara. "I promise I won't hurt you." He started off slowly till he built up speed and there were a few after images, not too many but plenty enough to entrance the jinchuriki. The boy swayed in his seat and straightened up when his friend stopped. Naruto groaned and rubbed his shoulders sorely.

Hidden from their sight the Kazekage and his son, Kankuro, watched the display, impressed at the speed Naruto already has to make after images.

 _Flashback end_

 **In the arena**

Hamacho was a burly man with a cocky smirk plastered on his face as he stared at his bored opponent. Though Naruto did wave at his sister and Shin yu in the crowd who were surrounded by a gaggle of gossiping girls from her class that giggled and winked at him. Hamacho was shirtless and had brown shorts that frayed at the edges; he was also barefoot but had a hard hat on his head. He slung a war hammer over his shoulders and looked down on the blonde.

"Your team mate traumatized _my_ team mate, and Jogu is like a brother to me which means that means I'm going to take out my violent frustrations on you, Kage's son or not." Naruto just silently cocked his head to the side and removed the black scythe that was strapped to his back. "Do you even know how to use that thing?" still no answer, besides a bored blink.

"Last match, Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze vs. Hamacho Sho. Fight!"

Hamacho raised his hammer above his head and it glowed a deep blue, "I call my weapon 'kami's finger,' do you want to know why," silence, the boy took a stance with his scythe across his chest, "because it can do this…" he zipped to the boy and brought his weapon down on Naruto. The blonde, not fazed by the surprising show of speed, raised his weapon just in time to catch the hammer and the subsequent lightening that tried to surge through him but was countered by the toxic chakra he insulated his scythe with. His arms shook from the pressure of the blow and he skidded back a few feet before he stopped, smoke coming off his spotless black weapon and his slightly singed coat sleeves. He blocked another blow but this time he was prepared. He caught the blow and shifted his weight to the side so the attacks momentum would carry Hamacho down. The older man though rolled forward and slammed his hammer onto the ground, the blond slammed the butt of his weapon and the resounding shockwaves pushed themselves to a standstill.

The bulky man's eyes widened in pure, unadulterated shock; no one had ever blocked his 'kami's finger'. The boy gave a small smirk and ran forward, his scythe behind him, the man tried to slam the hammer on him but he slide under his legs and the long weapon made the man trip. He kicked Hamacho's side and used the blunt side of his weapon to whack his ribs, he heard a satisfying crunch. The man grunted and rolled away, picking himself up and readying his hammer. He caught a hack in time and parried a slash narrowly, sparks flew everywhere after contact. The fighters' arms blurred. The slashes and blocks kept raining down on the struggling man until the sunglasses wearing boy feinted a slash to the man's stomach and used the butt to bash the side of his head, effectively dazing him. He followed up with a snap kick to the head and another kick to the other side of the head.

The man was obviously not used to being man handled; he looked like he would fall down anytime soon. The puppeteer swung the blunt side of his weapon up at the tall man's chin and he fell back like a tree, even booming when he met the ground. He walked to the man and held the scythe to his throat and looked at Kakashi, who eye smiled at him.

"Winner Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze! Damn kid, where did you learn how to fight like that?" The boy didn't hear him though; his green shaded eyes were fixed on his father in the Kage's booth. The man was wide eyed and gaping, not too far behind him was his red haired mother, equally in shock. He sighed and trudged back to his team. Kakashi cleared his throat and asked the remaining genin to come down and pick a number. (I'm not going to call all 16 genin, just those in team Anko.)

Ami of Konoha vs. Mita Saito of Suna

Sai of Konoha vs. Ito Yumi of Kusa

Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze of Konoha vs. Sistene of Taki.

"Come back in a month's time for the real third round, dismissed." The copy ninja said more to himself than out loud, though he was still audible, as he read his porn. He waved them away and shunshin'd to a more private spot, giggling perversely all the way.

The snake mistress looked down on her students and felt a warm feeling fill her chest. She ruffled their hair one by one, though her hands shook when she reached Naruto-who flinched and readied his senbon launcher. She placed her hands on her hips and smiled, "I'm proud of all of you. Take the next four days off to relax or hang out with your friends. Training starts after the small break so don't miss out. Dismissed. Oh and _Naruto-kun_ " she called out to him as he was about to run out, he gulped when he heard her moan, "…erm, I have this kink in my back, can you help me _rub_ it out?"

"Sorry I think I hear my sister calling me, see you later sensei." And he disappeared just in time to avoid some ensnaring snakes.

She growled, "I will have you, _Naruto-kun_ , and we will have explosive sex even if it's the last thing I do…" the few spectators-thankfully not his parents-stepped away from the woman as she stomped out of the arena, muttering about, "sex…red light district…and more sex."

 **Authors note**

 **Pardon my laziness on not writing all 16 matches but my fingers can only type so much. I'm not too good with dialogues but I still tried right? This month alone I published about three 'short' stories, try and read them in my profile. I will shamelessly advertise myself till you dudes try my other books! *grins***

 **This is the dawn of the** **'DUCI2'** **series written by yours truly.**

 **Have no fear; Naruto is still the same only that now he's trying to be a team player.**

 **I want a vote. Who wants Naruto to finally have sex with Anko? When he's older of course or whatever. I want to hear your ideas, opinions, criticism, etc.**

 **Review!**

 **B.j.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Merry Christmas everybody!**

 **To the story, I'm stumped with the pairing; I want to pair him with someone from canon but I also want to create an OC. What do you guys think? I'm flexible.**

 **Thanks for all your reviews:**

 **I'm sorry if I got my message confused when I asked for your opinion. I don't think it's possible (it is) for a 9 year old to have sex with a 30 something year old. I don't mean to insinuate anything but it wouldn't be comfortable** _ **or**_ **easy for either of them. What I meant to say was that if I should make an** **omake** **lemon of the two (Naruto and Anko) since the Naruto I've painted in this story would in no way go for Anko's type.**

 **I deeply apologise if what I asked was in any way offensive to anyone.**

 **Coduss: thanks for the romaji name Yo! I'll start using it from the next chapter,**

 **Asia1990: I appreciate your opinion but what I said at the top is my response. I can't think of any circumstance that'll push Naruto to do 'the dirty' that doesn't include her somehow slipping** _ **something**_ **into his drink but if that happens then the teams trust in their sensei would be destroyed. I'll think about making it into an omake where the Naruto would be a lot different (and, of course, older) if I find the time to write smut.**

 **(BEFORE I FORGET I CAN'T WRITE SMUT, SO IF ANYONE READING CAN THEN PLEASE HELP ME OUT!)**

 **Guest: no, no, no. The friend I'm talking about hates his** **real** **parents, not Minato and Kushina. I won't tell you the reason why.**

 **Another Guest: 'GARB'? If that's what I think your saying then fuck off, let others enjoy it if you don't want to.**

 **Draconic Reborn: no I'm not colour blind dude, it was an honest mistake, don't kill me because of someone's hair colour. My computer autocorrects Bijuu to bijou, I've corrected the mistake (in the computers autocorrect that is). Do you know that clones are just like their 'boss'? I mean, do you think that they have a separate personality or something. If they want to act different they can but they mostly take after their summoner, I'm guessing. He doesn't have more chakra than Kisame; I said he has** _ **denser**_ **chakra than most ninjas, like a bijou but not as dense. I blame the fact that his mother was a former jinchuriki. Good enough for you?**

 **Greer123: I am doing well, what's new dude?**

 **geist: remember I said that she screamed before she moaned when he was removing (or altering) her seal. Yeah, that sort of thing, the brain would try and find out who or even what is making the body feel so good! I swear if it was the Sandaime, Sarutobi Hiruzen, there then Anko would chase after him. Or heck, if she saw Gai first then she'd be chasing after his freakiness.**

 **Note: I was listening to 'Danger' by Marshmello & Migos…among other songs when I was writing this chapter, so the fight scenes may be a bit too action-y.**

CHAPTER 11

Shimura Danzo dismissed the ROOT ANBU team he had sent to scout out Kiri. They had reported that the reign of the 'bloody mist' was ended by a masked boy, the locals guessed the person to be a teenager, that went by the name 'Kumo' or 'Spider'. It was very suspicious because the Mizukage was a veteran of war and for a rumoured teen to come and kill the great man was preposterous. Factor in the fact that the man had the three tails in him and he was a power house no one wanted to face and a _child_ ended him, he had to look into it.

The bandaged man wrote down a command for his prime investigation team and tracking team to look into 'Kumo' and his whereabouts, whether or not he could induct him into Konoha or better yet into ROOT. If he did not agree there was always _'katoametsukami'_.

There was a sharp knock on his office door and the spy he put on the Yondaime's child's team entered the room and bowed to him lowly. Though he didn't remember summoning him,

"What is it you want, Sai?" he asked the pale boy without looking up, he continued writing his letter and patiently waited for the boy to speak.

"I wish to speak about my target Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto freely, Danzo-sama," the man stopped writing to buzzed in a random ROOT operative to take the letter and give it to the named teams. He looked back at the black haired boy with his lone coal black eye and silently nodded, "I believe he is not a threat to ROOT sir, he only fights those that block him."

"What are you trying to say?" Danzo said stoically, the man was waging an intense internal war; he suspected what the boy was about to say and he did not want one of his most promising operatives to start losing his touch before he could firmly grip it.

The boy shuffled on his feet uncharacteristically and the man's eyes widened minutely, and the edge of his lips twitched downwards, "Naruto would better serve Konoha as he is than as a ROOT ANBU, sir. I don't think it is wise to force him to be inducted in here. I wish not to offend, Danzo-sama and I say this in the most honest way possible that he would be most effective away from here."

Sai stepped back and bowed deeply to his benefactor while the man slightly clenched and unclenched his fist, "who are ninjas, Sai?"

The boys kept his eyes on the ground, perfectly hiding his disappointment, "they are their village's tools, Danzo-sama."

"Who holds the village's tools, Sai?"

"The Hokage, sir."

"Which is better? A blunt and defective tool or a sharp and precise one?"

"The latter, sir."

"Which do you think Naruto is, boy?"

"The latter, sir."

Danzo breathed out calmly from his nose and folded his fingers under his nose; he fixed the boy with a hard look and said, "Who do you think should control the village's tools?"

"You, Danzo-sama."

"That's right, boy. Naruto has potential that _only_ I can bring out; he is already a sharp tool that should be in my grasp and my grasp only. Why bring the matter to me if you know I wouldn't change my mind?"

Sai gulped and clenched his fist nervously, "he-he is my friend and I read that a person looks out for his friends." He stiffed under the almost palpable air that his master exuded; the man kept his face blank and unreadable.

"I did not give you this mission to befriend him, I commanded you to gain his trust. It seems you're losing your touch; a day in the 'Conditioning Chamber' would rectify that." He ignored the boy's almost invisible twitch and waved him out of the room, "report to Fu Yamanaka right away." The boy stood up and bowed before he marched out of the room, the man looked at the closed door for a full minute, mulling over what the 9 year old had said in full honesty, but he (sadly) didn't see the logic in not having a hold on Naruto. He hummed and stood up, his eye caught a twinkle on a shelf near his desk and he swiftly ignored the reminder that he still wasn't Hokage, and he walked out of his office to the underground training ground for the newly inducted rookies he took from the orphanage.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 **A week later**

"Hello, Naruto." A voice said from behind the blonde. He was in training ground 43 with Shin yu working on another project he had found for himself, he wasn't afraid of the other competitors in the chunin exams spying on him because the training ground was less used and since it was near the forest of death people usually swerved away from it, plus he had clones Henge'd into fierce animals guarding the entrances and exits. The voice sounded old and weathered, it was the Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi. The boy smiled at the old man and bowed to him. The man then nudged over someone that was hiding behind him, the boy had brown hair, wore goggles on his forehead and a long scarf that trailed on the ground around his neck. "Konohamaru-kun, say 'hi'"

The boy looked to be about 6 years old, "hullo…" he bowed to the older boy and wriggled back behind the former Hokage. "Ji-san says you're strong, Naruto-san, is it true?"

The boy scratched his cheek and laughed nervously, "I try my best, Konohamaru." You could quite literally see the stars in the younger boy's eyes. Naruto nudged over the girl that hid behind him, she slide off his back and blushed nervously. "Sarutobi-oji-sama and Konohamaru, this is Shin yu. Shin-chan this is my jiji and his grandson, Konohamaru." She waved at them and slide back onto his back.

"Nice to meet you, child. Konohamaru-kun, why don't you show Shin yu-chan how fast you can run."

It was like a light switch flickering on and all the confidence in the world had poured into the boy's little body, he stood in front of his grandfather and grinned at the girl. Naruto's mouth twitched in amusement at the next words to come out of Konohamaru's mouth, "yeah, Ji-san says I'm fast for my age. I bet I'm the fastest six year old in the whole of Konoha." The blonde could feel the glare from the girl on his back, those who knew shin yu-which weren't very many-could attest to the fact that she was as competitive as a contestant for Miss Konoha and a race horse combined. She leapt over his head and landed a foot in front of the brown haired boys face, he didn't even look startled.

"Oh yeah? Wanna put your money where your mouth is?" the girl nasally challenged while the girl's best friend scratched his chin in question, wondering where she learnt those words from. "'Cause Naruto-san says I'm the fastest in my age group!" and thus a friendship/rivalry was born. They ran off in a random direction all the way yelling incoherently at each other.

Sarutobi watched them go with a smile on his face; his first mission has been accomplished. "What are you doing here, Naruto-kun?"

His answer was a small brown furred beaver scampering to him. it stood up and the war veteran could see that it wore a green flak jacket with a spider badge on the right chest with the a large leaf symbol on its back, it had green eyes and silver tinted large teeth in a surprisingly spotless mouth and small but deadly sharp claws on his hands and feet. It wagged its strong, flat tail around in 'joy' from the man's silent scrutiny. He would have said the small creature was a summons if not for one small fact: it wasn't breathing. He looked at Naruto and caught his own green eyes looking at him unfocused ever so slightly and the green almost invisible string of chakra that came out of the base of his neck.

The beaver saluted to the man and crawled up the boy's body till it reached his shoulder. "I'm practising how to move around and if necessary fight and at the same time looking through this little guy's eyes."

"You can see what the beaver can see?"

"Hai, I just need to connect a small part of my brain to its own. It doesn't even pinch so don't worry, Ji-sama."

"How far away can it be and still be connected to you?"

"I'm haven't tested that yet," he looked to where he presumed the younger children were and was not surprised to see them rough housing on the ground, thankfully Shin yu wasn't channelling her seal. It also wasn't serious so he looked back to the elderly man, the beaver jumped off his back and dashed out of the training ground to the forest of death.

"I'll have to leave you now, make sure you bring Konohamaru-kun back to the compound by sunset." After saying this he poofed away to kami-knows-where to do kami-knows-what.

"Naruto-san! He bit me!"

"No, she's lying! She bit me!"

"Shin-chan, stop biting."

"Naruto-san!"

"Ha! He believed me!"

He shook his head and made a clone to spar with. They settled into their stances before they shot at each other. It was to be expected that the clone would know his taijutsu style and the way to counter it, plus the fact he was still controlling the beaver and seeing what it sees made it on a level harder than before. The clone gave a jab and he met it with his own, kicking the other blondes feet from under him, then the clone went for an axe kick as he was down but he rolled away in time. Naruto puffed out some air from his nose and lunged at the clone, he feinted a right handed punch and delivered a well concealed left handed hook, he followed that with a kick to its side, which it blocked. Fighting like this was like fighting with something fragile on one hand but of course there was nothing in his hands so he had to constantly remind himself that his hands were free. He ducked a kick and jabbed the thigh and cleared the clone's feet from under him, the clone flipped and was about to land but was caught in a wicked punch to the neck and a following left heel kick to the side. It fell on the ground gasping for air I didn't need. He used the small space to instruct the beaver to enter the water and swim to the other side of the bank, it did so and encountered a particularly hungry tiger…just when his clone had recovered and shot at him.

He grits his teeth after the kick to the jaw and subsequent kick to the chest.

He caught a punch and viciously kicked the clones shin, ignoring his bug eyes, and punched his stomach five times; he followed the clone forward after each punch. He grabbed the clone's neck and hauled him over head, choke slamming him on the ground. He didn't stop though; he axe kicked the down clone two times and kicked its side so that it ploughed through an unsuspecting rock. The beaver had been running and dodging the tiger, it hid inside a hollow tree and Naruto breathed a sigh of relief when it passed but groaned when a snake-python-tried to wrap itself around it. The beaver jumped out…and caught the tiger's attention again. The small brown creature displayed abilities that left the larger creature baffled; it climbed the tree and was jumping from branch to branch, it kept spitting out green goo whenever its attacker kept getting close, not to mention that it could run over water.

Naruto slapped away the right hook and gave his own ground shattering upper cut, when the clone was airborne he jumped and drilled a few more punches on his doppelganger's chest and ended the chain with a chop to the front side of his neck. He landed gently and as calmly as an adrenaline pumped child could manoeuvred the semi-aquatic creature to climb a tree to the highest point but didn't expect an eagle to swoop down on it when it got there. It used its flat tail to bash the airborne animals head till it was released, the blonde had it spread its limbs as wide as possible to slow its descent down but there was only so much it could slow down. He abandoned the idea and wrapped its tail around himself when he cleared through the treeline and luckily landed in a hole in a tree, he ignored the scorpions that stung its body and padded up the trunk and looked out to make sure the coast was clear.

The blonde ducked under a surprise snap kick and the subsequent one, he rolled out of the way narrowly from the last one. He kept slapping away the blows as he made the beaver scamper down the trunk and dash into the forest in a random direction till it reached a cave, it clicked its teeth and ran inside the pitch black opening. Though it had to claw the ground to stop it from running into a sleeping bear…and its sleeping cubs. He cautiously slinked back, slowly and quietly but bumped into a large furry mass that growled gutturally, it looked up and _surprise_! Papa bear. Naruto cursed audibly, ignoring his clones gaping face, he and the beaver simultaneously gulped.

The noise from the creature woke its family up and the subsequent chase around the cave ended with it lying under the mama bears paws. It struggled against the hold but it wouldn't let up, so he did the next best thing: he bit the paw with its augmented steel teeth and added a bit of his chakra to wear through the hair till it reached her pink flesh. The bear roared and released him; she nurtured her paw, which was rapidly becoming limp. Her four cubs surrounded her and licked her, while the papa was debating whether to allow the small intruder to go or to go and attend to his mate. There was no saving the bear so he made a mental note to go and retrieve her body later.

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

 **Third round Chunin exams**

"What's wrong with you Sai?" Ami muttered to her out of character but still in character team mate, "why aren't you calling Naruto 'dickless'?"

"I do not think that would be beneficial to my health, Ami-san,"

"You didn't care before, what made you start caring now?"

Sai furrowed his eyebrows in frustration and his spine chilling smile wavered to a small frown, "I-I don't know," Naruto looked at him from behind his glasses with a bit of interest, "I just remember going home and that's it,"

The team were in the competitors' box with their sensei, Anko, who looked down at the boy with both worry and mild suspicion, "what do you mean you don't know?" she leaned down to his height and squinted into his eyes, "think deep," Sai tried to look away but a firm hand and he couldn't move his head, "Sai, we're your team; there aren't any secrets among the four of us,"

"Yeah, like I told you guys I'm bisexual," Ami piped up from beside Sai, she grabbed his hand as a sign of uncharacteristic encouragement; this was one of the only times she could take something seriously. It was a good thing the only team present was the vengeful-now two man-team from waterfall that were too busy talking amongst themselves and sometimes hissing at them. Though there was only one genin and her sensei present most likely the other one was still at the psychiatric hospital either in Konoha or in waterfall while the other was in the crowd 'cheering'. "I even gave you guys my diary to read,"

"I-I-I-"

"I told you guys about my puppets and even about my spy network," Naruto said from Sai's other side, his arms were folded in his dark green hoodie sleeves with the hood up to hide his hair but his glasses were on his forehead to reveal his piercing green eyes, "I literally put my ass on the line and risked my career as a Konoha ninja by telling you those things."

"We're all friends here," the purple haired girl interjected, giving the blonde a strong look not to comment,

Sai was now visibly shaking. He swallowed thickly and was about to look away again but Ami gave his hand an encouraging squeeze, "what I'm about to-to say _would_ get me killed," he looked around, "the walls have ears, sensei,"

"Blondie, do you have any safe hiding places anywhere?"

"Of course I do. I've rehabilitating a place by the forest east from this arena," his purple haired team mate looked at him curiously, "I was about to tell you guys after the exams,"

"Sensei, can we talk about this after the exams?" the woman looked uncertain, "I swear on my art that I won't bolt," she smirked and nodded before she stood up. After a few minutes Sai had gotten his composure back and was grinning widely at Naruto who rolled his eyes and flicked his glasses on as he looked around the spectators section that was rapidly filling up. He spotted Mito coming in with Shin yu and a whole flock of giggling female classmates, "say, dickless," he made a displeased grunting from the back of his throat, "a little birdie told me you're into older women, is it true?"

Naruto looked sharply at the smug Sai and glared darkly, "I don't know what you're playing at Sai but I am warning you. Stop," he turned back to the crowd, "a little birdie told _me_ that you were into grandmas'. Is it true?" the only response he got was Sai's loud laugh.

Half an hour later and the third round of the chunin exams were underway.

 **(Just like my last chapter I won't write all the matches, only the ones team Anko would star in. so that means there would be OC characters)**

Kakashi was literally booted into the centre of the arena. He grudgingly stood up and gently put his porn back into his pouch. The Hokage had already said the welcoming speech for the exams so he didn't have to do much, "first match of the third round of the chunin exams! Ami of Konoha vs. Mita Saito of Suna! Fighters please come down to the arena!"

Mita stood on the railing of the competitors' booth sticking on with his chakra, he waved joyfully to the crowd and did a dextrous back flip into the arena where he landed softly on his feet. He bowed to the Kazekage, who was in the Kage's booth, and then to the crowd the he tripped on his feet when he made to bow to his opponent. Ami was taken aback when the chameleon summoner stumbled to her and kissed her hands, "such beauty and innocence my eyes have ever seen. Hear me, sweet maiden, what is your name?"

"Uhm…" she looked at her sensei that too was very much confused by the act, she shrugged and rolled her wrists, telling her to go with it, "Ami. My name is Ami,"

He peppered her hand with kisses but when he slipped past her elbow he was kicked back, "such a woman should never soil thy hands by touching me for though my looks are dashingly irresistible I am still not worthy,"

"…Uhm…ok?"

"Wave thy hand, good proctor, so I shall prove to my fated that I am worthy enough to hold her hand to my heart,"

Kakashi tried to piece what the obvious drama queen (or king, in this case) had said and had it not been for Ami telling him to "start the match so I can fight get away from this creep," he wouldn't have snapped out of his daze. He called the match and leaped away.

Mita's composure took a complete change; he flicked his scarf to cover his nose just as he flashed through some seals. Ami glared at him when he shimmered out of sight, "kai!" nothing. She clapped her hands together and smirked when the chameleon summoner stumbled and left some foot prints in the ground, _"purple illusion: you see-"_ a sharp tail slapped her hands away and the same tail cleared her feet from under her.

"No can do, beautiful," she heard his voice bounce around the filled up arena, as well as his ragged curse, "what did you do to me!" his foot prints stumbled all over the fighting area,

"seal less disorientation illusion is a specialty of mine," she rolled back to her feet and drew half a dozen kunai, "now stand still," she threw the weapons and flashed through some seals, _"shadow kunai technique"_ the 6 knives turned to 40 knives that pelted down at where she assumed the Suna genin stood, none stabbed clean through him but she caught a splash of blood to her right and she capitalized on it, _"purple illusion: you see-"_ she was again cut off but by a solid punch to her unprotected belly that threw her a few feet back.

She growled angrily and bared her teeth at the levitating bloody sleeve. She abandoned all tact and ran over to him; she pulled out some shuriken and sent them over immediately. The shuriken were dodged but that was part of her half thought out plan; she cast another seal less disorientation illusion and had his control over his camouflage waver till it eventually fell.

Mita stumbled dizzily to the wall and tried to use it to keep himself up, his legs wobbled and his eyes were seeing quadruple. He was in no way tired but he wasn't used to being dizzy. A drop kick impacted his chest that bounced him off the wall and a rib shattering kick struck him when he struggled to his feet. A sharp right hook to his half protected jaw spun him till he again slammed into the wall.

"I'm not giving up, darling," his green hair frizzed up and his chameleon tattoo glowed with a sickly green. A poof of thick smoke covered the two fighters. In the smoke Ami cast another disorientation illusion but that didn't save her from a tail swing to the midsection, she grunted and spat out some blood that had come up. She grit her teeth and tried to see into the smoke but a tail to the side of her head and she was shot out into a tree. The girl groaned and pushed out of the tree, falling onto the ground when she got out.

Her eyes blearingly caught sight of a long tailed creature storming to her and she made a last ditch effort, _"purple illusion: you see-"_ she cried out in pain when a tail slammed her back into the tree and held her there,

"Why can't you see that I won't let you cast that genjutsu, babe?" Ami shook her head tiredly and glared at where she thought Mita was talking from, she again spat out some blood from her mouth. Said boy slinked over to her and stroked her cheek tenderly, "feisty little chick, huh?" she growled at him and struggled against his tail, "no use. Please give up,"

"fuck you," she spat into his eyes and when the predictable happened-he released her and fell away to clean the bloody gunk out-she steadied herself on her feet and mustered all the strength she had in her as she zipped to him, she pulled her hands back and savagely axe punched Mita at the top of his head. He grunted from the chakra augmented blow and wobbled away when she added another axe punch. He wildly swung his tail around and luckily clipped her shoulders, dislocating the limb.

She crawled away and leaned against the wall as he stood where he was, still frantically cleaning his eyes out.

Ami snarled and wobbled to her feet defiantly. She swallowed and ran back at him again, ducking under a tail swing, then another till she was in front of him. She jabbed his throat thrice and flipped away when he tried to grab hold of her, when she got far away enough she threw shuriken, that he still couldn't see, that punched into his arms. Mita roared in outrage and his eyes literally bugged out, they stretched out of the sockets and glared at her, he tore the weapons out and…

Collapsed onto his face.

The purple haired genin sighed to herself and fell on her knees, trying to catch her breath. Kakashi looked at her worryingly, "relax, fast acting paralysis poison. It'll clear out of his system in half an hour," he called the match in her favour and waved for the medics to head in. She closed her eyes and allowed her shoulders to slump tiredly just as a female medic came over to her,

"Your match was very impressive, Ami-san," the medic said to her as she shouldered her out of the arena,

"Thanks," was all that could come out of her mouth; she was in a world of pain. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing even, just like what her sensei instructed her team to do if they were grievously injured. She wasn't too used to being injured this much.

"Is she going to be alright?" she heard Naruto ask as the medic laid her down on a bed in the medic ward,

"Just a few sprains, cracked ribs, a dislocated collar bone and a mild concussion but nothing I can't remedy, Naruto-san," she heard the blonde hum and then she felt him pat her hand,

"That's good. I don't feel like hearing her groan about forfeiting the exams until the next one," the medic giggled to herself and went through some seals for her medical jutsu, "you have very good chakra control to be able to do that,"

"It took me 3 years of chakra control exercises and meditation but I've finally got it," even with her eyes closed she knew the medic was tucking a strand of hair behind her ear,

Ami heard Naruto sit down by her bed and guessed he was facing the medic as she slowly waved her hands over her body, "I can't seem to get my control high enough,"

"You want to be a medic?"

"no, no, I want to be a hiding in the shadows and kill you while you sleep sort of person but knowing medical jutsu would still be good," it felt strange hearing Naruto talk this freely; he only opened up a little bit with his team, his sister and his best friend. Maybe he was trying to make more friends. She groaned quietly when she felt a rib snap back into place and the bones slowly clicked back together, "my apologies, I never got your name,"

"Call me Sami, Sami Endo, Naruto-san,"

"Nice to meet you Sami-san,"

"quit flirting with the medic, dickless, my match is about to start," she heard Naruto sigh in frustration and the medic giggle a bit louder, though still not too loud.

"I was not flirting with her; I was just having a conversation to pass the time," still though Naruto stood up, "I guess I'll see you later, Sami-san. Later, Ami," she waved to him with her eyes still closed.

"The Yondaime's son seems nice," Sami said when the boys left, "nicer than how I pictured him to be,"

She couldn't stop herself from asking, "How did you picture him?"

"I first saw him when I was twelve carrying these huge pieces of wood with these tiny green strings, his face was so cold, so…you know that I thought he'd be one of those leave-you-in-a-crater-with-tigers-and-not-give-a-crap kind of person,"

"oh he is, it's just that he only really talks to his friends," she sighed when she felt a bump on her head reduce, "maybe he's trying to make more, I think that's why he was talking to you. My advice: don't think too deep into it." Sami nodded and went back to fixing the purple haired budding genjutsu master up.

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

"How's she?" Anko asked the ROOT ANBU agent,

"she's fine, a bit banged up but she'll be as good as new when she has to fight again," Sai said as he waited for his name to be called for the next match, "oh and _dickless_ here was flirting with the medic, what was her name again?"

Naruto's expressionless face twisted up in mild irritation, "her name is Sami and I was not flirting with her,"

"Oh yeah? Then why was she blushing?"

"I don't know? Maybe allergies or something," he smiled at his sister and Shin yu at the spectators section, "the question I have is whether or not you'll confirm you're into grandmas' or not,"

"I'm actually seeing this girl from my yoga class," Sai said matter-of-factedly as he adjusted his forehead protector, "I can introduce you to her after the exams if you want,"

"…you're a good liar Sai but I can see right through you; you don't do yoga or know how to talk to girls,"

"And you do?"

Naruto stepped back from the sharp response and smirked proudly, "more than you, I'm sure,"

"Prove it,"

"I'm not in the mood to toy with a girls feelings," he rolled his eyes when his waterfall opponent hissed at him…again, "you're up, idiot"

Sai punched his shoulder and leaped neatly into the arena while his opponent calmly walked down the stairs. Ito Yamato (I apologise; I mistakenly repeated 'Ito Yumi'. I'm replacing 'Yumi' with 'Yamato') was almost the same as his brother, Yumi, but he wore steel silver trench coat that was zipped up and sandals with a grotesque scar that ran from the corner of his hair to the right, across his nose, down to his chin. The scar just lightly touched his right eye with the eye being covered by an eye patch. He, too, was as pale as his brother.

As he got to the where his other opponent stood with the proctor he blinked slowly then he looked at Kakashi, "start the match, proctor-san,"

"Whatever," the copy ninja cleared his throat, "Sai vs. Ito Yamato. Begin!"

Neither fighters made a move, "I don't see how my brother lost you," Yamato said, his face plain and bored, like Naruto when he was fighting. Yamato put his hands behind his back, "It'd benefit both of us if you forfeit this match,"

"How so?"

"I'd rather not end a kid's career as a ninja,"

Sai didn't even blink at the threat, he just took out his pad of paper and brush in preparation for the fight, he lightly squeezed his brush and a short tanto shot out of the end while at the back of the pad flashed a barely visible seal, "I'd take my chances,"

"So be it," Yamato threw his arms out to Sai, two kunai in their grasp. The hands shot out of his wrist and impacted the ground with a sound boom when Sai narrowly dodged them. The pale boy observed the severed limbs and mentally cursed when he noticed some steel silver chains connecting them back to Yamato's wrist. He drew an ink lion and sent it out of his pad to his opponent.

The ink creation bounded over to Yamato, who had pulled his fists back, and bit down on his leg. Yamato didn't wince even the slightest, he looked down at the surprised ink creation and raised his right hand above his head, he then brought it down and jammed his fingers clean through the lion's neck, effectively dispelling it. He dusted himself down and threw his hands at Sai again, who leaped out of the way again. The ROOT ANBU swung his small blade at the silver chains connected to Yamato's wrists but the metal only sparked dangerously and gummed his blade to it, forcing him to abandon it.

He winced slightly his he saw his half severely singed up arms. He cradled them to his chest and dodged another fist, "can't you see? There is no way you can beat me," Sai was now running through all the single formation plans he and his team and devised if they were ever in a sticky situation without help. Sadly, none of them outlined if the threat could electrocute you with his detachable hands. His mind went abuzz went he started losing feeling of his arms.

He looked at his paper pad and steeled his gaze. He threw it like a Frisbee and at the same time channelled his chakra into the small seal at its back, it spun madly to Yamato, who had already raised his hands to catch it, and the corners of the pad spouted out curved blades (like a boomerang), before Yamato could catch it Sai pulled the a thin wire connected to the pad and yanked it a bit back so that Yamato caught thin air and the boomerang pad still whizzed past his face half a second later, lightly skimming his left cheek.

The man silently held his face in pain as he bent down. Sai yanked it back and spun around before he allowed the pad to draw a thin line of blood from Yamato's left ear. He pulled it back to him and caught it before he unsealed another brush. He flipped open his pad and drew a whole pride of lions before he sent them out of the paper and to the silently writhing Yamato.

The lions clamped down on any piece of flesh visible but the man still didn't scream. Sai limped to him and tapped a kunai at his neck, at the same time looking at Kakashi who had called the match.

"pride comes before a fall, Yamato-san," Sai said as a medic attended to his singed arms, he looked at Naruto, who had jumped down to his side, "I don't feel so good, dickless,"

"You were electrocuted idiot," Naruto looked at the medic, now a male, "would he be fine?"

The man pulled him away, out of Sai's earshot and whispered, "if he had broken some ribs or fractured a bone I would have said 'yes', but he was shocked by kami knows how many volts of electricity. His heart beat is irregular and his eyes aren't responding too quickly. We have standard procedure for this kind of thing so I can stabilize him, I don't know if it will be in time for his next match,"

Naruto sighed as they walked back to Sai who was now flat on his back on a medical stretcher, "I don't care if he doesn't make it for the next match, just don't let him die. Got it?" they were now in Ami's room, where the girl was still blissfully keeping her eyes closed,

"Perfectly," the medics in the room ushered the Yondaime's son out so they could begin treating him but Naruto still had the time to exclaim.

"Don't die, idiot!"

"Dickless, I thought you knew me; I don't _do_ die,"

The blonde puppeteer shook his head in exasperation and strolled back to the competitors' booth, "he'll be fine, sensei,"

She broke character (you _all_ know what I mean when I say _this_ Anko broke character) and looked down at the boy with worry. The boy was the last member of his team that was not in the medic ward being treated. Right now she didn't care if her team lost the match; she hadn't bet much in the third rounds because she had enough money as it were. She was deeply worried for their health. She knelt down in front of Naruto and squared her shoulders,

"Sensei?" her behaviour had him forget to set his senbon launchers,

"Naruto, I want you to know that forfeiting a match isn't at all that bad," she put her hands on his shoulder without the limbs shaking, "I'll still be proud of you, all of you all the same,"

"Sensei?"

"If you go for your match and you see that you can't go on don't be ashamed of throwing in the towel, ok. Promise me Naruto,"

"I promise, sensei," he shook her hands off his shoulders; still not used to being touched by the sex driven woman, "they'll be fine,"

"I know, kid,"

"Next match: Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto of Konoha vs. Sistene of Taki. Fighters please come down," Kakashi shouted,

 **Kage's booth**

"It seems all the members of team Anko are injured," Mei Terumi the Mizukage of Kiri muttered to her fellow Kage's present,

"it seems so, but you have to admit that they all put in showings worthy of being chunin," Rasa the Kazekage of Suna said a bit louder, he sat up straighter and looked down at the arena as Naruto walked down the stairs, "don't you think their fights had them worthy of being chunin, Hokage-dono?"

Minato too looked down into the arena, "yes, I believe they are, but we have to see where this all leads to," he scratched his chin in thought, "you know that whether they fail or they pass they are still eligible for a promotion,"

"That is true," the turban covered Kazekage said, "Who do you think will win in this match?"

"Both fighters have shown unseen advantages in their former matches but I still have to go with Naruto,"

"Why is that? Have you forgotten the summons Sistene wields?"

"No I haven't forgotten. But have you forgotten that Naruto has so many secrets even you don't know them," the Yondaime Hokage didn't claim offense; only nodding his head slowly, "who are you rooting for, Kazekage-dono,"

"I can't go against Gaara and his siblings by rooting for somebody else. Even still he is a very strong boy with so much up his sleeves it isn't even chuckle worthy anymore," he let his eyes briefly trail to where his children sat in the spectators section beside the Hokage's child, Naruto's close friend and Mei's sword wielding subordinate. "What of you, Hokage-dono?"

"I'm going with my son," _'even if I don't know_ _ **who**_ _my son is anymore,'_ he mentally added.

 **Arena**

Sistene of Taki was a beautiful girl in her mid-teens making all wonder how she ever got on the same team as the two dunder headed males. She wore a white battle kimono that was constantly flapping in the non-existent wind with an orange scarf around her neck that trailed down to her ankles. She had frizzy brown hair that glinted in the light with permanently red rosy cheeks on her pallid skin. The way she smoothly walked down the arena made most men and women alike wonder whether or not she was floating in the air or gliding.

As she 'touched down' beside the proctor she sniffed haughtily at her blonde and bored opponent. Naruto's hood was up as well as his black glasses so his reaction to her facial expressions could not be discerned. She scowled at him, she was about the same height as him, and walked so close to him that he could practically smell her minty breathe, "what? Not going to go into the usual chunin exams pre-match banter,"

He raised an eyebrow, "I didn't know there was such a thing,"

"Some genius you are; you aren't even observant,"

"I just choose to ignore some things and focus on other things. Like the fact that I can't have my personal space being destroyed so easily; could you please step back?"

"Why don't you make me," she flicked his nose and didn't miss how his entire right arm twitched dangerously, "all bark and no bite,"

"If you two lovers would excuse me, we have an exam to run," Kakashi interrupted before Naruto could lose his cool, which wasn't happening, "Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto vs. Sistene. Begin!" he leaped away and so did Naruto.

"there's one thing you need to know about me, Blondie, and that is…" she snapped her fingers and Naruto's nose felt like it was on fire, "never allow me to touch you," Naruto was now frantically scratching his nose, praying to anyone that could hear to let the pain subside but it was for naught. He rolled away from a kick and sprinted into the forest to think over what she had done to him. He slumped against the tree and his whole face was red and itchy, his mind was panicking while his body was stony. His hands fumbled over a seal on his arm and when he managed to unseal what was inside he shakily pushed the needle into his neck, half a minute later he felt the pain subsiding. He allowed himself a sigh and a brief moment to relax against the trunk. "Found you," Sistene thrust an epic palm strike to Naruto's unprotected chest that flung him into the main arena. He shakily stood up and idly looked down at the hand burned onto his chest.

His mind went into a daze on how she could easily sneak up on him when his hearing was as good as an Inuzuka ninken's. He hadn't planned on using them until later but he didn't want to go anywhere near this girl. Naruto strongly kicked the girl back to where she was before he unsealed the puppet in his spider tattoo.

Kumo (or Gumo) stood in Naruto's place as the smoke was swept away. Naruto was inside, injecting himself with a different needle, with a different solution inside.

The spider-man puppet combo snarled at the wide eyed girl across the arena and skittered blazingly over.

 **Kage's booth**

"He's a puppeteer?!"

"You didn't know?"

"No, he never told me,"

"That's strange; Mei-dono and I knew,"

The Hokage watched with wide eyes as Kumo pummelled the Taki genin into the ground, "he-he is so talented," Rasa too watched the match as the Taki girl, out of desperation, too pulled out a trump card. "How did you find out, Kazekage-dono?"

"Naruto once came to me with a peculiar request. He asked me whether he could use seals on puppets joints. Of course I didn't know but I told him what Chiyo-obaa-sama once told me 'puppets are an extension of a puppeteers mind'. If seals can help extend his mind into the puppets then yes, he can use seals in puppet joints,"

"And what of you, Mizukage-dono, how did you find out?"

"Naruto and I are pen-pals. I'm sure he doesn't know that 'Emi Rumite' is the current Mizukage."

' _Naruto can confide more into a stranger than with his own parents,'_

 **Arena**

Kumo slapped away a kick and grabbed the leg before she could be thrown to far away; he used the leg and slammed her into the ground. She made to roll away but Naruto used a spider leg and pinned her in place so that he could drill blow after blow on her.

He stepped away when she went limp but instantly regretted his decision when she blew up like a party balloon and disappeared.

"I didn't want it to end like this but you've forced my hand!" he heard her voice echo around the arena, _'Secret art: Sistene's sonata!'_

The air in the arena thickened and the first sign of trouble were the tiny, translucent blobs that appeared from the forest and circled around the puppet. The blobs joined together and formed bigger blobs, when the blobs were only three in number curtain-like tentacles fell down from under them as their bodies turned into an upside down sort of cup. A beady eye formed on each that glared down at him.

Jellyfish.

Angry jellyfish.

Jellyfish angry at him.

Naruto gulped a little and when the floating sea creatures opened a cavity where their mouths were meant to be the pressure on the spectators of the fight lessened while the pressure inside the triangle tripled. Their hollow song was pressing down on his spider puppets joints in more ways than he would ever admit. The legs finally gave up and he made to crawl away but his hands and feet were pinned straight into the ground.

The blonde grit his teeth to keep in the yell of pain as a long tentacle burned through the trunk and across his back. The pain numbing injection he first took was wearing down and the poison in his system was too much for the injection that controlled his heart rate to slow down to be fully effective anymore.

His saving grace was that he had an ejector seat in an…unsavoury part of his puppet. He couldn't care less so he pumped in as much power into the fail safe seal to shoot him out of the butt while his first puppet exploded into shards of wood and shrapnel that peppered the floating killers, forcing them to dispel.

He shakily got to his feet and sank underground just as the jellyfish summoner landed a ground shaking punch into his former position. Sistene summoned a small group of the killers to search for him but it was all for naught.

Naruto had used his escape to enter deep into the forest and unseal his beaver spy and his mummy puppet. He shakily gave his prized scythe to his puppet and commanded both to run out and fight while he lay down and injected himself again with a pain numbing solution. His beaver was connected to a tenketsu at the base of his neck while the mummy was connected to his weak right hand. He let it twitch so that the cackling puppet could slice through the killers and dispel them so that he could take on the, again, wide eyed summoner.

The taijutsu puppet was too much of a match for the girl, so it came as no surprise that the puppets superior speed knocked the girl out after a swift chop on the neck. The mummy puppet didn't even waste a minute before it blazed into the forest and out again with the barely limp Naruto.

All he could remember before he passed out was someone yelling for the medics.

 **Authors note**

 **Has anyone ever been stung by a jellyfish? If you at least know the danger they pose then it's understandable how Naruto could be so easily manhandled. He has antidotes for most animals he is aware of; he didn't know that he would ever be stung by those killers least of all prepare for them. I hope I didn't suddenly under power him. But you have to admit, Sistene was pretty strong.**

 **Also take into consideration that any summons in Naruto is over powered. Like a slug can spit out** _ **acid**_ **, a toad can spit out** _ **oil**_ **, a salamander can** _ **level**_ **a** _ **country**_ **! Do I need to go on? In here a jellyfish can burn through most materials with a swipe of its tentacle. But they can be easily dispelled as seen when the mummy puppet killed the group of small jellyfish with a scythe swipe.**

 **Some might yell that Sistene took a cheap shot or something but that's what I call being a ninja; taking any advantage possible as long as it's not** _ **after**_ **she lost, nothing like how most other fanfic authors would say that a scornful Sasuke would try and 'chidori' some poor fool through the back.**

 **Yo and guys, I don't see or remember any girl from canon that can match Naruto's personality well enough. Need I remind you I will not write an incest fic or a harem fic! Help me with helpful names that you know would be compatible with the little dude. If not I'll just create an OC to pair him with, easy as that.**

 **Ami seems to be cooling down huh? Not as stir crazy after her first beating huh? Yes, she's strong for her age, it's just that she** _ **was**_ **a bully; she is used to giving the pain, not receiving them. The teams training would get her hurt but not as hurt as fracturing a bone, breaking some ribs, getting a mild concussion and/or spraining most of the things in her body.**

 **Sai, too, is understandable. He was electrocuted and survived! Look up what happens to you after you're shocked; you might be amazed or whatever.**

 **I want to know what you think: Opinions, thoughts, ideas, criticism, etc.**

 **Review!**

 **B.j.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Happy New Year…in…Arrears!**

' **Greatness' is back! I'm still in school but this chapter has been buzzing in my ear since last year. I couldn't help myself. I want to remind you all that I will continue my stories, if they need to be continued, but I will put 'Anything but being a Ninja' on temporary hiatus. I'm still surprised that my first story is this popular. Thank you all! You're all WICKED AWESOME! CYBER PIES FOR YOU ALL!**

 **About this chapter, I really wanted to get past the chunin exams to get into the real story. I want to ask if there's anyone kind enough to draw Kumo (or Gumo) or Wraps (the mummy puppet. I'd be very thankful.**

 **About the pairing, I think I should wait some time before I pair Naruto would anyone, but his team mates and anyone else is free game. I've got someone in mind but I'll have to wait a few more chapters before I go with it. Still, I'd be grateful if you send your pairing opinions via review or PM.**

 **Thank you for all your reviews!**

 **Jacanon: Naruto wasn't under powered dude. He got blindsided by jelly fish poison when he was flicked on his nose. He doesn't have any anti-venom for them but he does have pain numbing injections. Those weren't normal jelly fish, they were summons. Not ordinary jelly fish. I mean do ordinary jelly fish** _ **sing**_ **? He had to get passed the summons before he could get to her, like cutting the head off the snake, that's why he seemed to be focused more on fighting them. If you don't get what I'm saying, send me a PM.**

 **Greer123: thank you bruv,**

 **Namittheking: again, he wasn't under powered. He was blindsided and the girl took advantage to the fact that he was too distracted. Neither Yagura nor Kakashi blindsided him. Cool?**

 **Luffyxrobin-luffyxnami: I'm not pairing Shin yu with Konohamaru, so you can chillax. And sorry dude, but I don't write harems, I can tolerate pairing him with someone a few years older than him but not someone as old as Konan.**

 **Let me get this straight. My friend does not like his birth parents, his own friggin' birth parents, not Naruto's parents. I made Naruto similar to him; he also doesn't like his birth parents (Minato and Kushina). Say my friends name is Bee; he doesn't like Mr and Mrs Bee, not Minato and Kushina. Get it?!**

 **On another note, don't ask me a question if you don't have an account for me to respond with 'cause I'm gonna stop responding here in favour of sending PM when I can. Cool? Awesome!**

 **Hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing.**

 **Again…enjoy…**

CHAPTER 12

" _We're losing him!"_

" _Clear!" Ba-bump, ba-bump._ The boy saw butterflies flutter around his vision, he weakly raised his hands to catch them, but the little critters phased through his hands, he felt his arm pushed back onto the bed…bed?

" _C'mon Naruto! Again! Clear!" Bump-bump, ba-bump-bump._ What is making that noise? The boy wondered, his bleary eyes, looking at the butterflies that fluttered erratically around him, as if they were reacting to the noise as well. His eyes fixed behind the butterflies to the lone person, or thing that stood amongst them. His mummy puppet. Wraps. He closed his eyes, and relaxed.

It all passed him in a daze as his eyes were closed tightly. There was hope he would survive, he would get through it.

It all lasted five minutes.

"You too huh?" he tiredly turned to who had spoken and smiled faintly at Sai who was busy drawing in his paper pad, he waved at Ami as she smiled brightly at him, "out of all of us, I never expected you to get put through the wringer,"

"I'm human too," his voice was croaky and dry, he smacked his lips and Ami jumped off her bed to tip a glass of water into his mouth, "thanks,"

"Don't worry about it." she took a seat beside his bed, which was between his and Sai's, and looked at him intently, "you worried us there,"

"I'm sorry," he looked to his right and lightly ran his fingers through his sister's hair then through Shin yu's; she was propped up against him, hugging him tightly, "what time is it?"

"If you're worried about whether or not you've missed your match then don't worry about it; the Hokage has called for a one hour intermission so the remaining contestants can rest up."

"Good, then we still have a chance to make a good showing,"

"Naruto, I don't think you understand the severity of what just happened to you; a poison expert got poisoned! If that's what you face in the first round then what's to say the second round won't be harder?"

"I survived didn't I? You didn't exactly come out without a few bumps and bruises too you know," he looked around his teams medic room and furrowed his eyebrows, "where's wraps?"

"I know that and I know where I went wrong; I intend for the mistake to never repeat itself again," she pointed to the corner of the room beside her bed, "your mummy puppet has been standing there ever since they dropped you off," Naruto looked at the puppet curiously and then down to his finger where a thin, almost invisible green string from his pinkie connected to the puppet. It was strange because, when someone is knocked out his control over anything external would diminish. If his puppet was still erect and partially operational even when he was close to death, how was it so?

He was broken out of his musings, "that's good, now can we focus on how we're going to destroy the rest of the competition?" Sai said from behind his paper pad, he was busy sketching out something his team couldn't see, "oh and Naruto, your parents were here,"

"So?"

"They want to pull you out of the exams,"

"Like hell they are," he summoned some thin but sturdy strings to lightly lift his sister and best friend off him and into an empty bed beside his own. He grunted in strain as he tried to stand up, but his arms were just too weak to take his weight off the bed. He still couldn't feel his legs. His eyes roved over the room again and landed at the large and fully stocked medical cupboard by the wall at the team's beds feet. He commanded his mummy puppet to open it and bring out the foldable wheel chair, he had wraps set it up and carefully lift him onto it,

"Where are you going, dickless?" the artist got too got off his bed, his feet shook uncertainly before he got his breathing under control,

"I'm going to see the Hokage. You two coming?"

"Sure, why not," the two other team mates said at the same time and followed Naruto out of the medic room with the mummy puppet pushing his wheel chair. He stopped at the door and cast some strings to pick up his coat and his blood sealed scrolls before he continued on his journey to the Kage's booth.

Most of those that blocked the way cleared off when they caught sight of the only team to have all their members in the second part of the third round of the chunin exams. They got to where the Kage's stayed to watch the exams and the mummy knocked on the door,

"Enter,"

He rolled the wheel chair inside and his team mates chose to stay outside, "Naruto? What are you doing here; your meant to be resting," his mother asked as she rushed to his side, she knelt down and began frantically looking over him,

"You're pulling me out of the exams,"

"It's for your own good," Minato said with as much authority his voice could muster, the other Kage's watched the drama curiously from their sides of the booth, "you're too injured to keep going,"

"You guys lost the privilege of doing what was best for me when I was 5. I'm continuing with the exams whether you like it or not," he had wraps stand between him and his mother, stopping her from coming any closer, and bowed to the other two Kage's, not missing the secretive smirk from the Mizukage and the Kazekage's rolled eyes,

"Naruto, if you keep going you'll get worse. You can't even stand for kami's sake!" his mother hastily said as she looked at her husband to back her up,

"I don't need to stand to be able to fight, but you don't know that," the mummy puppet gave an involuntary cackle and Naruto cracked a grin, "I'm more protected than you think, Tou-sama"

The Hokage looked away to muse over what his son had said, "I'll allow you to continue but any sign of trouble and I'll have Kakashi pull you out,"

"Fine by me Hokage-sama," the mummy pulled his wheel chair out of the room and when the door was closed he slumped into the chair and sighed tiredly, he took off his coat and laid it on his lap while he sealed the large scroll into his spider tattoo, "where's sensei?"

"She went to get some food a minute before you woke up; hospital food sucks," Ami said with a wide grin; maybe she was going back to how she usually was but now with a healthy respect for death and pain. The fact that she had on her lucky apron and her bandages were testament to the fact that she still loved 'dirty' blood.

He nodded and rolled to the contestants' booth, they still had five more minutes before the end of the intermission. The remaining contestants gaped when the saw the poisoned son of the Yondaime being rolled into the booth with a toothily grinning mummy, with his team mates trudging beside him. Naruto was rolled till he was by the railing and he looked over the edge down at the arena. Kakashi grudgingly slinked to the centre and began calling matches till it was Ami's turn, she rolled her neck and grinned at her team mates before she leaped over the railing and landed softly by Kakashi.

The man raised his hands up, "Ami of Konoha vs. Dusty Akakama of Suna, begin!" Dusty was a 14 year old girl with a slim body build. She had on camo brown pants, camo brown scarf and an oddly neat plain white shirt with the Suna symbol dotted all over. She held in her hands two sickles that hummed silently like Naruto's obsidian scythe when he coated it with chakra. Half of the girls face, leaving her shoulder length red hair exposed, was covered by her scarf but her visible coal black eyes portrayed the fact that she was not going to underestimate Ami. Not in the least.

The purple haired girl cracked her neck and grinned at her opponent, she sauntered over and her grin reduced to a smirk as she looked the girl over, "hey there,"

Dusty cocked her head to the side curiously and she lowered her weapons, "hello," he voice was slightly muffled by her scarf but it came out clear enough,

"What's good with you?" Ami sheathed her kunai and held a hand out for Dusty to shake, her opponent looked at her hand warily and sheathed one of her sickles, shaking the hand tentatively.

"Eh, got my ears pierced last week and my kaa-chan got me a dog," she used her weapon to lightly scratch the side of her head, "you?"

"Nothing much. Say Dusty-san what's it like in Suna?"

"Well-"

Her story was cut off by the proctor; "if you girls don't mind…" he waved nonchalantly between them then at the audience.

"Oh yeah," the Suna genin said idly, her eyes roved over the crowd then back to Ami, who was doing the same thing, "we still have to fight,"

"I guess so," the genjutsu user muttered, "let's continue this after the exams, ok?"

"I'm down with that. Good luck Ami-san," she unsheathed her sickle and took her stance, Ami doing the same with two kunai,

"You too," the Suna ninja first attacked; she brought her knives down on Ami but the girl slide out of the way and tried to kick back but Dusty, who was surprisingly capable with her weapons, met the kick with a raised shin, elbowing the genjutsu user in the belly. Ami gingerly stood back up and threw her knives; Dusty crossed her sickles together and caught the kunai mid-flight with the space between them. She twirled around and threw the weapons back, but stumbled when her vision blurred, unintentionally throwing the knives in the complete opposite direction.

She then felt a savage punch to the side of her face, then a merciless punch to her belly. She was then round house kicked a few feet away. She lay on the floor, trying to catch her breath as well as her vision but a snap kick to her side flung her away, but she kept firm hold on her weapons. Dusty cursed up a storm and closed her eyes, her mind still like the harsh sand storms of her home village, and crossed her weapons again, _"Hiden art: Sickle storm scissor fingers"_ she spun around on the balls of her feet and the ground underneath her kicked up and whirled around with her. The vortex of brown wind then turned into a deep bloody red, the top curving and closing so it looked like a red cat-like sclera eye. The vortex then began spitting out multiple red sickles that whirred noisily and homed into Ami's general location, as if they had a mind of their own.

The genjutsu user looked on with wide eyes as the sickles impacted around her, stepping out of the way when some got too close for comfort. She grinned and ran through her arsenal of special genjutsu, _"Purple illusion: Stampeding bulls"_ she ended the long chain of hand seals with _dragon_ and clapped her hands, the sound ringing out above the noise of the attacking sickles and the spinning red vortex, she then stamped her feet. The vortex flicked once, then twice before a dazed Dusty could be seen stumbling around on her feet. Ami clapped her hands and stamped her feet again and the Suna ninja was blown off her feet by an invisible force.

The illusion she cast was a custom made illusion that was inspired by a dream, a good one, about some stampeding horses. The illusion changed those horses to purple bulls that chased after the target. The pain was not felt but the feeling of having all those bulls run into you would simulate the feeling of being off balance, throwing the person off his or her feet. It wasn't a traumatising illusion but it was very terrifying, so it greatly surprised her that when she was about to hold a knife to the scarf wearing girls throat she was quickly kicked away. Dusty stood up, still swaying on her feet, and stumbled to where Ami was recovering.

 **Kage's booth**

Minato nodded in respect to the Hidden Sand Leader, "so far all your ninjas don't give up easily, and I respect that,"

"Thank you Hokage-dono, they have been taught to keep going until they cannot stand anymore,"

"And she's from a clan too," the Mizukage piped up,

"Yes, the humble Red Sickle users, rumoured to be related to the Uzumaki and the Uchiha because of their peculiar features and prowess with their weapons," Rasa droned, "I know her parents, really nice people,"

"I remember fighting one during my chunin exams all those years ago, if their standards are still the same then Ami has to do a lot better than that," Minato said. The two fighters below him were clanging weapons and elbowing each other.

 **Fighters Arena**

Ami grit her teeth as she shuffled back after blocking a sickle slash, "you're very strong Dusty-san,"

"Right back at ya Ami-san," she too grit her teeth when an elbow met her side and narrowly dodged the blunt side of the kunai to the head, "can you tell me why you're holding back?"

"I like you, I don't want to traumatise you," she raised her forearms and her right knee when Dusty threw a fast snap kick to her side, she stepped back and had to repeatedly raise and lower them to defend against the attacks, "you've seen what I can do to grown men," this time she grabbed the thrown limb and swept the other leg from under her, Dusty back flipped and flipped again when her leg was thrown away, "why are _you_ holding back?"

"pretty much the same reason," she twirled a sickle and threw it at her opponent, Ami glared at the weapon and ran away from it, the curved knife followed her around till it whirred noisily back to its owner, "you know, if we keep holding back no one's going to win anytime soon,"

Ami sighed, her shoulders slumped in defeat, "I know," she was about to go into a chain of seals but was forced to fall to her back, a sickle whistling over her head, and roll away when the weapon jammed into the ground and cut through till it reached Dusty. There was a curious looking translucent blue rope that was connected to the sickle from her hand. The purple haired girl stood up and flashed through some hand seals, the Suna ninja sheathed her weapons and also went through some hand seals, _"Water release: Drilling water bullets!"_

" _Wind release: Drilling air bullets!"_ both fighters began spitting out sharp projectiles from their mouths that clashed between them, splashing water about. This continued for a moment until Dusty misfired an air bullet and a water bullet slammed into her shoulder.

" _Purple illusion: Yami's army!"_ the illusion caught the girl and she was subjected to iron skeletal hands ripping out of the ground and clamping onto her legs, she tried to pull away but all movement left her, allowing the skeletons to pull her into the ground and subsequently unconsciousness. It was the same illusion she used against an Inuzuka chunin in the second exam. The only conscious fighter looked at Kakashi and the man called the match in her favour. Oddly going out of character, Ami accompanied the unconscious Dusty to the medic bay.

"Next match is Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze of Konoha vs. Jizo of Suna!" Naruto sighed sourly when he saw who he was fighting,

"Of course I get a puppeteer…" his mummy puppet lifted him up with the wheelchair and jumped over the railing, dropping him gently in front of Jizo. The girl wore the seemingly patented brown camo print all the genin of Suna wore, but she had a black top and camo pants and scarf that trailed to her heels. She had on the patented face paint of a Suna puppet user. She had an average build for a 14 year old. Her blonde hair was in a messy bun and her dilated teal eyes scanned her opponent. She had a large bandaged bundle on her back that wriggled in anticipation.

"You sure you're ready for this, Naruto-san?"

"I'll be fine," the blonde boy rolled up his sleeves, exposing the thick tattoos that lined up his forearms to his shoulders. The girl nodded approvingly at the art depicted on his arms,

"Aren't you too young for those?"

"Tattoos are awesome,"

She giggled at his response and raised a delicate eyebrow, "awesome?"

Naruto cracked a smile, "yes, they are. Anyways, I see you're a puppet user too,"

"Yes, though it seems you too use puppets. How'd you learn it?"

"Blood," he remembered all the times he cut himself with his own weapons accidentally, narrowly keeping his limbs "sweat," all those days he woke up at sunrise to train and didn't stop training till well past sunset, "and tears," those days he had to do the unthinkable to further expand his knowledge on human anatomy as well as animal anatomy, "just like every other ninja,"

"If you two are done _flirting_ ," he expertly ignored the dual glares both competitors threw at him, "we have an exam to conduct. Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze vs. Jizo of Suna, fight!" quick as a flash the mummy puppet pulled his controller away to the far wall and Jizo leaped away as well.

The stare off was electrifying.

Then in sync both puppeteers removed their choice puppets from where they were kept, Jizo slamming down the wrapped bundle on her back and Naruto pulling out the large scroll from a seal in tattoo and the mummy puppet slinked to his front and cackled loudly, sending tendrils of icy fear cascading down all the spectators backs. The puppet removed the obsidian scythe that was strapped to his back with a smooth swish and took the basic stance for the 'Dizzy spell stinging fist' taijutsu style. Jizo sent her strings into the wrapped bundle and it exploded in a shower of bandages to reveal a hulking humanoid puppet with a golden brown tigers head and brown tiger's paws and feet. The puppet crouched down on its cat like legs and snarled at him.

"Say hello to Killa, my first puppet," Killa sprinted forward and leaped at him but wraps batted the large man-tiger out of the air and shoulder tackled it into the wall. Killa clawed the mummy's belly and blinked in confusion when the large clump of bandages he had cut out began connecting back together. Wraps cackled maniacally and smashed the blunt side of Naruto's obsidian scythe into the side of Killa's arm. The beast puppet caught the attack and tried to pull the weapon away, the thin mummy puppet showed a surprising show of strength by holding on firmly. Killa opened its mouth and fired out sporadic bursts of senbon. All attention was focused on the puppet fight until…

"You can control _two_ puppets!?" Jizo brought their attention back to the fight as she split her attention between controlling her man-tiger puppet and running away from a large gold and red snake that slithered to her quickly. In a burst of speed and toxic green chakra the snake caught her and wrapped her up tightly. She couldn't call her man-tiger puppet back to her because it was currently being occupied by the very capable mummy puppet that matched it blow for blow, leaving no opening for her to exploit. The python puppet tightened its hold on her, cutting off her connection to her puppet and also driving all air out of her lungs.

"Say hello to python, my…something puppet," Naruto said blandly, he commanded the mummy to hoist his opponents limp puppet onto his shoulders and stomp over to his tied up opponent. Jizo clamped her eyes shut and concentrated with all her might for a single thread to come out of her fingers, "and don't to detonate those bombs you have inside your puppet," she snapped open her eyes and gulped when the scythe almost touched her throat, "forfeit," she nodded in defeat and the snake unwound from around her.

"Winner by forfeit, Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto! Man kid, this fight's shorter than I expected," Naruto shrugged, sealed up python and waved at the female puppeteer before he was wheeled back to the contestants' booth. Jizo ran up to him, her beastly puppet lumbering behind her, and stopped him,

"How did you know I had explosive tags in Killa?"

"I didn't," he laughed when her shoulders slumped and continued his journey back to his team mates, "oh and great fight,"

"Thanks," she murmured dourly and walked back to her team mates.

"What is with you and flirting with older girls, Dickless?" the ever annoying Sai said loudly, attracting the attention of his horny sensei, his questionably psychotic female team mate, the female senseis' from the other villages, the other remaining female contestant from the Konoha, the spectators in the crowd…and his parents. Basically everyone in the entire arena.

The blonde boy sighed tiredly and covered his face, "I'm finished," he murmured quietly, he removed his hands and glared flaming red daggers of endless pain at said, who wore his infuriating smile, " _I swear to kami Sai,_ " he left the threat hanging like an over bearing cloud of acid that would begin raining at the slightest whisper, obviously Sai disregarded the threat,

"I was just being honest; I've read that honesty fosters good relationships,"

"That wasn't honesty that was thinking out loud and for the love of kami. Wasn't. Flirting!"

"Then why was she blushing?"

"I literally squeezed the air out of her, she was trying to get her breath back!" Naruto struggled to get up from his chair and personally beat sense back into the emotionally conflicted boy, "and for crying out loud I'm not dickless!" his last yell rang around the quiet arena. Sai smugly crossed his arms over his chest, his job done. Meanwhile Naruto's head fell on his chest and his shoulders slumped in embarrassment, swearing to himself that he would murder his team mate in his sleep.

"Uhm…well…" the silver haired proctor tried to wrap his mind around the fact that the blonde haired son of the Yondaime had lost his cool…as well as all the others that knew him, heck even Shibi gaped. He shook his head and coughed into his hand, "next match, Sai of Konoha vs. Hitomi Amari of Konoha," not even giving the black haired boy a chance to jump into the arena, the mummy blurred to him and booted him down. Sai winced and stood up, rubbing his sore behind and already regretting goading Naruto. Hitomi grasped the railing and with an overly dramatic twirl she landed before her Konoha opponent. She wore baggy purple pants and a white and black striped shirt over her, the shirt seemed too large for her; it stopped at her knees and the sleeves fully hid her hands, falling down to her shins. Her hair was in two long light blue pony tails and she had rosy red cheeks that flushed shyly under Sai's silent scrutiny. She blushed a red so deep Hinata nodded in respect.

Sai raised an eyebrow at her, "any problem?"

The girl idly kicked a stone and tapped her hidden fingers together, "…you're cute…" she squeaked out bashfully and covered her face,

Not even having the will power to cut off such an adorable 14 year old girl, Kakashi raised his voice, "Sai of Konoha vs. Hitomi Amari of Konoha, fight!"

The girls attitude took a 180 degree change; her red face evened out and her fidgeting stopped completely, making the ROOT ANBU operative come to a realization, _'she's just like Ami,'_ Hitomi waved her long sleeved above her head and flicked them violently at the boy, the sleeves acted like harsh tentacles; they smashed into the ground and pulled out a clump of earth from under him blindingly fast. Sai used the force of the throw to flip around and grasp the wall with his chakra, he pulled out his brush and pad and began drawing, he finished six seconds later and a lion leaped off the pages and charged at Hitomi. The girl flicked both of her arms and wrapped the ink lion up with her sleeves and ripping it apart mercilessly. Sai expertly used the minute distraction to charge at her behind the lion, frantically drawing stick men and sending them over to their deaths.

The girl whipped her head and her long pony tails elongated and slammed into his chest, sending him away again. He coughed and stood up in time for a sleeve to smash the ground underneath him and throw him off his feet again. He staggered back to his feet and jumped over the attacking sleeves, running up the length of the arm and kneeing the girl on the face. The hard blow knocked the girl's concentration off and the sleeves went limp, her neck snapped backwards and blood arced out of her nose. Though she recovered faster than he anticipated; she stood up without bending her knees or using her hands and whipped her hair at her attacker. Sai brandished his brush-tanto and clanged his weapon against the hair. Steel sparked violently on contact but the boy stayed strong. The hair pulled back and hovered above Hitomi's head, the tip twirled together till it was a sharp tip and it rocketed down at him.

Sai had to make use of all the agility and reflex he had gathered from his time at ROOT ANBU training and Team Anko training. He flipped and slide under the attacking hair, then he had to step away and bend back from the attacking sleeves. To the spectators it was like watching what they imagined a sea monster attacking a ship looked like, a very agile ship. In the boys head he was analysing his opponent, _'she hasn't used any sort of ninjutsu yet and she isn't fast in close combat, her hair and her sleeves seem to be attached to her body and not attached at the same time,'_ he batted away a sharp hair spear, stepped back from a sleeve tentacle and used the tentacle he stepped away from to jump over the second tentacle.

His eyebrows furrowed and he threw his brush-tanto at the girl, perfectly in between two crossed sleeves and formed a _rat_ hand seal. The brush exploded, throwing the girl away but the sleeves and the hair stayed intact but limp. He ran over to her and kneed her stomach when she huffed back to her feet mechanically, she tried to do so again but he punched her chest and drop kicked her. Hitomi growled at him with her blood painted teeth and was about to flick her hair at the pest that kept stopping her progress but Sai tackled the girl to the ground, flipped her to her belly and used his forearms and arm to hold her neck in a basic submission manoeuver, not giving her arms room to control her sleeves.

"That's enough. Winner, Sai of Konoha!" Kakashi exclaimed as he pried the boy off his opponent, he blinked in confusion when the girl reverted back to her shy persona as the medics looked over her for any injury.

"Girls huh?" Sai said as if reading his mind and the lazy jounin snorted,

"I know what you mean," The man called for the next match and that was over a long while later. The Hokage called the jounin up and announced that there would be a thirty minute intermission before the exams continued so that the competitors could rest up. When the intermission had ended the first match of the quarter finals was called, "next match Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze of Konoha vs. Ami of Konoha,"

"Oh no…" Naruto sighed, cursing his bad luck as his mummy puppet hoisted him up and dropped him in the arena with his team mate. Meanwhile his team mate couldn't be any happier,

"Oh yeah!" if there was a sure way to defeat Naruto it was with genjutsu; his chakra was too dense to pass through his tenketsu fast enough to dispel it and if it did pass through it was excruciatingly painful for the boy leaving him vulnerable until he recovered. That was why immediately after Kakashi had started the match Wraps hurtled to her, "oh no you don't!" she cast a quick disorientation illusion and the mummy puppet rocketed straight past her and rammed into the wall. Her blonde team mate was frantically looking around, shaking his head to clear up the mixed colours he was seeing. Closing his eyes wouldn't have changed a thing; it was his brain and chakra network the jutsu targeted.

The girl sauntered to him smoothly, occasionally giggling when the calm boy cussed,

"Oh Naruto," she sighed and stood in front of him with her arms akimbo, "Naruto, Naruto, _Naruto_ ," she sighed wistfully when she heard another crash behind her, correctly assuming that the Wraps had again crashed into the wall, "it seems I'm the predator now," she made a growling sound and trailed a dainty finger down Naruto's face, "though I still wonder; how are you going to get out of this situation?" she sat on the boys lap and smelled his face like a cat about to eat a fish, "oh my you _do_ smell delicious," most would classify what she was doing as flirting but her team mates called it intimidation, which seemed to be working until…

Naruto stopped hyperventilating and smirked, "got you,"

"What?"

" _Kai!"_ a visible sphere of toxic green chakra erupted out of the boy's chest and threw both of them in the opposite direction.

Naruto _yelled_.

Ami _screamed_.

Both grasped their heads and bit their biceps to keep their pain inside, drawing blood. The proctor contemplated calling the match as a tie until the seemingly motionless mummy puppet that refused to go limp, fell on his knees and crawled over to Naruto's purple haired team mate and fixed his forearm between her neck, eliciting a pained struggle from the girl. She couldn't get the strength back into her limbs as her wiggling reduced and eventually stopped altogether. Her body felt like a large piece of old wood, freshly cut out of the tree and sturdy as a rock, with small ripples of pain smashing through her from the tip of her toes to her head. There was this odd weight that blocked her lungs, like the vice clamp hold one of her mother's rapists held her neck with as she watched her mother get manhandled.

Over with Naruto he felt like small sticks had been inserted in each and every one of his tenketsu, with them increasing and decreasing in size at random moments before it settled back to its original size a minute later.

The arena was quiet.

The blonde boy huffed and weakly struggled to sit up, his breath was laboured and weak as his hands shook with the effort of hoisting himself up. The pain all over his body started up again as he fell on his back.

"That's enough-"

"No, give me a second" the boy grunted,

"C'mon kid-"

The boy glared icily at the copy ninja as he rolled to his belly and struggled to his feet, swaying as if he was indecisive, he then took his first step to his incapacitated team mate, then the second, then the third. He couldn't hear himself think over all the noise the crowd was making, over the sound of that annoying thumping in his ears, fourth step, he gnashed his teeth as he stumbled but didn't fall over. He grasped his chest and wiped the perspiration that fell from his head, his stumbled again, his vision doubling with another pulse of pain.

Kakashi sighed, "Naruto-"

The boy ignored him and knelt by his team mate's side and put a finger onto her forehead, a chakra string attaching firmly, and he sucked out his catastrophic chakra from her system. The weight that had settled on the girls chest, the one that rippled with her pain and wanted to squeeze the life out of her, lifted and she could breathe again, the memory of her mother's death went with it and she blinked in confusion up at the person that had pulled her out.

"Naruto?" she croaked, not yet having feeling in her body, "what happened?"

The boy slumped beside her, the mummy puppet laying him gently down, "what did you see?" the compressing feeling his chakra had on people if it was introduced into their systems brought about hallucinations and asphyxiation if he pumped in too much, like he did with Ami. The first person he had practiced his dispelling with was the old librarian, Sami Yamanaka. The man had said he saw his late daughter leaving for a mission in the last shinobi war with her team and not coming back.

The girl, who had turned and looked at him, tore up, "my-my mom,"

Naruto sighed and looked up at the Kage's booth, at his father, "Kakashi..."

The man looked down on both fighters, he fell on one knee and looked down at the bow, "yes?"

"I can't go on,"

The man put a hand on Naruto's shoulder and squeezed lightly, "a good ninja knows when to retreat," the blonde nodded and closed his eyes. As if the crowds in the spectators stand could hear what the child had whispered all fell silent, looking at the proctor as he stood up smoothly, "neither fighters can continue, this match ends in a draw." The yells were deafening. The medics skittered into the arena and began attending to the injured duo. Naruto and Ami were hoisted onto stretchers and lugged to the medic bay.

"It seems you always get into some sort of sticky situation, Naruto-san," the young medic murmured to him as she roved her hands over his upper body, another female medic close to her age was attending to Ami who was already conked out.

"Seems so," he murmured back, "be honest with me Sami-san, did I make the right decision? Giving up so close to the end, that is," he winced when the girl flexed his arm slowly and carefully massaged the limb, she did it again with his other arm, then his legs.

"I actually thought the first time you was here you wouldn't be able to continue. In my professional opinion you made the right decision, pushing your body that far is very dangerous," she massaged his right arm again, drawing delicate circles on his arm soothingly, "your…special chakra is too…" she scrolled through words in her mind, "thick, too heavy to pass through your tenketsu. You pushed out too much and your muscles are paying for it; I can only image what else would pay if you kept going," she gently flexed the arm, rolling the shoulder around before she dropped it and went for his right thigh, "I do wonder though, with your chakra being so one in a million how do you perform jutsu?"

"Like any other ninja but I just need to push more through my fingers," the girl hummed, understanding what he was saying, "it's because of my chakra I can't do medical ninjutsu; it'll do more harm than good if it gets into anyone besides me," she nodded and slowly bent his knee till it was a perfect 90 degrees, she then continued bending it even slower. Naruto clenched the bed and screwed his eyes shut; this was almost as painful as the time an incomplete explosive tag exploded under him.

"Deep breathe," she murmured and relaxed his leg, "what about that puppet, why is it still standing?" Naruto opened his eyes and looked at his mummy puppet, then at the faint string of chakra coming out of his pinkie finger and connected to the mummy's spine,

"I don't know, maybe I'm so used to controlling it I don't notice it anymore," his analogy was very true; he had been using Wraps so many times for so long that he had almost literally turned into an extension of his consciousness, except for the fact that he couldn't see out of the mummy's eyes. He was distracted by this fact; he began plotting out different seal combinations he could make to simulate seeing through a puppets eyes, maybe even going further to seeing 360 degrees around him. Seeing through his beaver spy puppet was different because the small animal had a brain he could connect his own to. He blinked in confusion when he was brought out of his complex musing by someone snapping his or her fingers in front of his face. The boy chuckled nervously when his eyes focused on Sami's face, "sorry did you say something?"

The girl rolled her eyes and continued her administration diligently, sometimes asking him to move a body part if he could.

 **Kage's booth**

"What do you think about the last match, Hokage-dono?" the Kazekage asked, he shifted in his chair to get comfortable in his chair, "to me he performed how any of my ninjas would perform; till he couldn't move anymore,"

The blonde Hokage nodded slowly, his eyes were where his son formerly lay, unable to move, "against my better judgement he went through with this match, but besides that he threw in the towel before anything else could go wrong,"

"His team mate shouldn't be so easily forgotten; from start to finish she was amazing, a true konouchi, even if her genjutsu are questionable. Though she has to work on her playfulness I can see how she could use it against an opponent. Would you mind if I meet her after the exams Hokage-dono?"

"I don't mind in the least," he looked at both other Kage's, "so far who's getting your votes to become chunin?"

Mei rolled her tongue and furrowed her eyebrows, "we can talk about that later, if you don't mind; let's finish with these exams,"

"I don't mind at all,"

 **Arena**

Since the last match, Naruto vs. Ami had ended in a draw the next match would immediately be the finals. This meant that Sai and his opponent were finalists.

"Next match, Sai of Konoha vs. Aratsuki of Kiri," Sai didn't feel as confident as he was at the start of the exams. Both of his team mates were in the medic bay and out of the race; he had been training to face with either of his team mates but with the unfortunate development his mind was forced to frantically remember what his opponent could do. He coolly walked down the stairs and stopped before his Mist opponent.

The boy, Aratsuki, was a tan boy that wore a peculiar looking yellow face mask that covered his upper face. He had a white shirt with the sleeves torn off roughly and khaki green pants that were tied at the ankles, where his green shinobi sandals started. The boy flexed his fingers as he eyed his shorter and younger opponent, also trying to remember what the boy could do. Kakashi started the match and swiftly leaped away but neither fighters' moved.

Sai cocked his head to the side and his face stretched into his signature empty grin, "aren't you going to make your move?"

Aratsuki cleared his throat roughly, "aren't you?" his voice was like hearing a steel being cut, but duller and more humanly.

"I'm thinking of what jutsu to use on you," the ROOT ninja whipped out his brush and paper pad quickly and drew a straight line with the tip of his brush pointing at his masked opponent after the line had been drawn, _"Ninja art: Ink chain"_ the ink line shot off the paper and dug into the ground, with a small tremor it popped out and wrapped the Kiri ninja up. The other boy didn't even raise any sort of defence, instead he dissolved into a small puddle of water, Sai hummed and commanded his ink chain to intercept a sword stroke that came down at him from above, "you have to do better than that,"

Aratsuki pulled his also peculiar yellow katana away from the black chain and with a swift chop the line disintegrated. The boy didn't have any sort of sheath on him, which meant that he knew a bit about sealing. The boy twirled his yellow katana and a Sai was forced to bend away from a torrent of water that shot out of the tip, the water sliced thickly at the wall behind him. He flipped away once, using the aerial somersault to brandish the short tanto out of his brush. He raised his weapon and caught the downward slash from the other boy; there was a brief tussle for foot hold from both of them before Aratsuki used his superior height and strength to kick the boy's unprotected chest. He zipped forward and elbowed the black haired boy's mouth, bashing the side of his sword at the side of Sai's head and kneeing his chest again, throwing him a few feet away from him.

During his beating the young artist did not let go of his brush and paper pad. He pushed himself to his feet and slowly rubbed the thin trail of blood at the side of his mouth, his spine tingling grin still firmly in place. He threw his brush at the kenjutsu user, _"Shadow shuriken technique"_ the jutsu made the Kiri ninja raise an eyebrow, that is until the brush-tanto exploded in a large plume of smoke, covering the entire section Sai stood in, and dangerously whirring shuriken burst through the smoke at once. Aratsuki snorted and expertly parried and flipped away the projectiles. The smoke infuriatingly didn't clear up, instead more and more shuriken exploded from it, peppering the ground around him with spinning stars.

" _Water release: Spinning blade!"_ after yelling the peculiar jutsu, the Kiri kenjutsu user expertly twirled his sword above his head, clanging off the multiple attacking shuriken. He then let go of his sword, it still spinning above him protectively, and punched the ground. the spinning sword vibrated, the only reason most knew it was vibrating was the humming noise it was making, and visible divided into two, then four, the eight, then sixteen, all still spinning above him, it kept multiplying till yellow katana's covered him in a vibrating dome. The protection allowed him to go through hand seals, _"Water release: Drilling water bullet!"_ a pathway cleared by his swords opened and he fired sporadically into the chakra smoke, in the general direction of where the Konoha ninja was before the smoke covered him from view, not taking a pause for a breather until two minutes later.

His senses flared and he pulled a sword from the spinning dome of death and stabbed it into the ground, he pulled his sword out and glared at the chunk of wood on its blade. He flicked the piece of wood away and stabbed it back into the ground again, pulling out another pesky piece of wood. It was like watching some sort of twisted variation of whack-a-mole; the boy would stab his yellow into the ground where he 'felt' Sai was about to pounce but pulled out pieces of wood after annoying pieces of wood. This kept on going for a few minutes till he pulled on up…

And it was riddled with explosive tags.

"Oh-" his curse was cut off by the sizzling chunk of wood exploding, blowing away his protective sword barrier and dispelling them when they smashed into the walls. Ink tigers stampeded out of the forest in the arena and leaped into the smoke, there were audible clangs and slashes after the tigers entered.

The piece of wood wasn't covered in explosive tags but smoke bombs on paper. Inhaling so much smoke, having smoke cloud his vision and constantly have to rely on his hearing to detect the ink creations was wearing down on him, he stabbed a tiger and kicked another tigers jaws, all the while wondering just how much chakra the boy had.

Not much if the fact that Sai was on his second chakra pill. He popped it into his mouth and summoned another tiger, hoping to kami that his kenjutsu using opponent was weakening. Substituting himself with logs while using _"Earth release: Hiding like a mole"_ was not as easy as he made it to be; he had to split his attention between staying under the ground, holding his breath and searching for nearby logs. Summoning another tiger to attack; that was what he had been drawing in the medic bay before, he barrelled in after it and leaped into the smoke, he clanged his tanto against the katana and stepped back, unsettling the taller boys footing and sweeping his feet from under him. The ROOT ninja looked down at him and savagely kicked his sword arm, throwing his weapon out of the smoke and into where his widely spread chakra smoke was settling. He kicked again when the boy made to grab his leg, stepping on his fingers and kicking again at his head.

His face was now clean of any expression, and it unnerved the Kiri genin how much the boy had pushed him in so little time. He held his injured limb with his uninjured arm and tried to roll away from the merciless boy but Sai had other plans; the boy took a step back and rushed at him, kicking him straight out of the smoke into Kakashi's sight, as well as others that watched. Sai caught up to the human projectile and knelt on his neck, holding his tanto to his neck. The savage kicks to the arm and torso had done a number on the older and definitely more experienced Mist genin; his shirt had splotches of blood and scratches from where the ink tigers had managed to tag him, his pants were also scratched up but thankfully still had enough materials to hide all that was meant to be hidden. His mask was intact but it didn't hide any of the purple bruises he had on his face where Sai's foot met.

He coughed and spat out some blood, looking up at the ROOT ninja defiantly and groaning when another foot met his arm, another met his thigh and more met his face.

"Forfeit," he winced when a foot met his ribs again and again, over and over, "I said forfeit," Aratsuki spat at him and a mighty foot threw him into a wall, more rained down on him unforgivingly. The proctor didn't step in because technically the Kiri genin could still recover from the onslaught, though the chances looked slimmer with each kick, and with each fraction his face swelled up, with the way he gradually stopped moving…

He whizzed over and pulled the boy back by the collar, then resolving to glare down at him when he struggled to go back to kicking the poor Kiri ninja, "alright, that's enough, winner Sai of Konoha!"

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

 **Ameagakure no Sato**

Konan blankly looked outside the windows of the Kage's tower in Ame. The rain cascaded down the glass and dripped down almost joyfully. She felt a presence behind her and didn't bother to turn around and acknowledge the presence of her team mate. The man, or his Deva path, stepped beside her and looked out the massive window, "what is on your mind Konan?"

"Nothing you should concern yourself about," she responded blandly, her pale face was free of any emotion as she breathed out, "what is the plan?"

"Zetsu has informed me that the chunin exam in Konoha is very interesting, he says the Yondaime's son is a puppet user and the boy is very strong. Did you know this?" he carefully observed her face for any sort of break but didn't find any,

"No,"

"That should be noted; I've added Sasori and Diedara to Itachi and Kisame's team to battle against him in case he interferes,"

"When do you want to start gathering them?"

"In a few years; the three tails has still not regenerated, Madara says that he thinks the holder is still alive. Did you know this?"

"No,"

Pein glared at her lightly, "what I did was for your own good; you were being a thorn in a straight forward plan," the woman ignored him and turned around to leave the room, "where are you going?"

"To get some air,"

"Don't stay out too long; you might catch a cold," she nodded and left the room. Half a second later the ground rippled and Zetsu came out, Madara followed with a swirling vortex, "what do you think?"

"She's hiding something, I just know it," the masked Uchiha said lowly,

"But she hasn't done anything wrong since _that_ time," Zetsu said,

"You said you couldn't track her when she disappeared, what's to say she didn't sell the information about Akatsuki to some village," Madara growled,

"Konan isn't like that; she doesn't betray her comrades,"

"think whatever you want, Nagato," the swirl masked man said idly, waving the rinnegan user away, "keep an eye on her," Zetsu nodded and slinked back into the ground. The mysterious Uchiha twirled around and flicked out of sight inside a ripple in the air, leaving Pein to glare on the last the man stood.

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO**

"Did you hear what leader-sama said, Sasori-dana? He said there's a puppet user in Konoha, a really strong one too, yeah!"

"Yes I heard what he said and it doesn't make any difference, he would fall to my art," the stone faced Suna puppet user said as he and his partner walked down the underground tunnels under Ame, their main headquarters. His face didn't betray what he was thinking (do you really want me to tell you why?) the thought that there was a puppeteer in Konoha, already reputed for besting a Suna puppeteer and able to use more than one puppet greatly intrigued him. He knew as a certainty that the puppet users in his home town were not weak, not in the least, so for that boy, 9 years old from what the Akatsuki main hunter ninja reported, to be able to best one of his countrymen in honourable puppet combat, as honourable as being a ninja could get, was _very_ intriguing. Add in the fact that after a deep investigation into Naruto's origins, it looked faintly similar to his own. Very, _very_ faintly.

One of the puppets the boy used stood out, the destroyed one, the man-spider puppet. Zetsu reported that the boy could hide inside the puppet and fight with so much ferocity it looked eerily like when he was in his Hiruko puppet body. The man-spider puppet was said to be riddled with traps and escape routes that aided the child when the pesky jelly fish summons held him down. He truly hoped that the child was able to restore his puppet shield body in time so they could fight. If he found the boys combat ability worthy enough…his dead body would be made immortal in his arsenal.

He mentally nodded and proceeded down the tunnels, tuning out the insistent blabbing his bombing partner had fallen into.

"I wouldn't underestimate Naruto if I was you,"

Both Akatsuki partners turned around in sync with smooth swishes of their red clouded and blankly until the Iwa bombers face stretched into a childish scowl, "Itachi…"

The Uchiha nodded at him respectfully then turned back to the Suna missing ninja, "I've sparred with him, since he started training, and I would say his close combat as well as long range combat is almost too impeccable for his age," he droned, his almost eternally activated sharingan eyes fixed firmly with Sasori's. His partner, Hoshigaki Kisame, furrowed his eyebrows at the Uchiha,

"He can't be that strong, you've got your eyes, I've got Samehada, Diedara has his bombs and Sasori has his puppets, we all have experience. What makes you think he'd be able to stand against us," the Uchiha had been newly inducted into the organisation last year and he was quickly making a name for himself; completing missions with his partner and assuring a 98% success rate in each. All the rouge ninjas in the organisation knew Itachi's ties with the Yondaime's son. The man would gladly admit that leaving the boy that idolised him with only the message to get stronger wasn't the easiest thing to do but it was necessary to ensure that Konoha wasn't weak in his absence.

"He wouldn't be alone, for starters; he works in sync with his team. His seal work his amazing. His puppets are creative and formidable and for what he lacks in genjutsu he makes up in taijutsu,"

"I still doubt he's that strong Itachi," Kisame snorted,

"Your just too afraid to admit that he can beat you, yeah," Diedara chortled, laughing boisterously but stopped half way when Itachi blankly looked at him and continued down a door beside them leading to another tunnel to another place,

"Don't say I didn't warn you,"

"Don't worry, yeah! We won't, ya loser!" the irate Iwa nuke ninja yelled after him, Kisame snorted again and followed after his Konoha missing ninja partner. Sasori and Diedara kept walking to where they were heading to. The Suna missing ninja's mind again wondered back to the boy,

' _If you are able to make 'The Bloody Uchiha' cautious then you will be a worthy opponent. Yes, I will make you my puppet,'_ darkness swallowed the duo, the bickering bomber and the thoughtful puppeteer.

 **Authors note**

 **And done! I enjoyed writing this, I really, really did. The fights and making up OC names was really fun. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I write my stories like I write my other stories, happily and as descriptive as I can make it. Check them out! I recommend: 'The White Hornet', 'Shadows Smirk' and 'Out of the Blue'! If you read those and you like them enough you can check out my AU stories. I assure you they're wicked awesome.**

 **Next chapter is gonna be really good, I've got it all planned out to the very last detail. I hope you guys keep reading to find out the s*** I'll put Team Anko in.**

 **So, what'cha think? Good? Bad? Meh? I really want to know! With these last words…** _ **please**_ **…REVIEW!**

 **B.j.**


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